THE BIGGEST BUILDING IN THE WORLD
THE BIGGEST BUILDINGS IN THE WORLD
Modern architecture has made relentless and remarkable progress over the past century, and with construction of the world’s tallest and first one 1km high building beginning this week in Saudi Arabia, it doesn’t look to be slowing any time soon. The biggest buildings in the world continue to grow and not just higher into the sky. On the ground they are expanding in all directions too.
Architects continue to overcome structural hurdles and make history with innovative and groundbreaking designs. Here are some of their biggest and grandest: the biggest buildings in the world.
Inside the world's largest airplane factory
Boeing's aircraft factory in Everett, Wash., is one of the world's largest. CNET ventures inside, where the company builds 747, 767, 777, and 787 aircraft.
Everett, Wash.--Thirty miles north of Seattle sits Boeing's immense factory, where it builds 787, 777, 747, and 767 aircraft. At 472.3 million cubic feet (4.3 million square feet or 98.3 acres), it's the largest building by volume in the world.
Boeing first completed the Everett site in 1967, because it had no facility large enough in the Seattle area to build its new 747 jumbo jet. With 25 747 orders from Pan Am on the books, time was short and the building was constructed as the first 747 mock-up was constructed on the factory floor. Boeing had to move 4 million cubic yards of earth to build the plant and construct the steepest standard gauge railway in the Northern Hemisphere. Even at the time of completion, Boeing set records for building size, at 205.6 million cubic feet.
The building is so big that clouds actually formed inside until an air circulation system was installed. Today there's no air conditioning or heating system. Instead, the factory is warmed by the 1 million ceiling lights and cooled (if it ever gets that hot in Everett) by opening the doors.
In 1980 the factory expanded to 298.2 cubic feet for 767 production, and it reached its present size in 1993 when Boeing started building the 777. More than 30,000 people are employed at the factory (working in three shifts around the clock) and about 110,000 people visit each year to take the public tour. Here you can see the factory's giant doors, which feature the largest digital graphics mural in the world (more than 100,00 square feet).
BOEING EVERETT FACTORY
LARGEST USABLE SPACE BY VOLUME
Location: Washington, USA
Floor space: 398,000 m2 (4.3 million sq ft)
Volume: 13.3 million m3 (472 million cu ft)
Year built: 1966
This building claims to be the outright biggest of the world’s biggest buildings due to its mammoth volume. Some of the greatest planes ever built are assembled here, such as the wide-body Boeing 747, 767s, 777s, and the new 787 Dreamliner. The facility opened for operation in 1967 to produce the first 747 jumbo jets. The factory is open for public tours seven days a week and houses six coffee stands, a bank and several cafés.
Boeing 747s at Everett
Aircrafts
What it’s like to work in the biggest building in the world
To build a fleet of giant airliners requires a building just as big. Boeing’s Everett Factory, built to construct the famous 747, is the biggest enclosed structure in the world.
When you’re building some of the world’s biggest airliners, you need an equally outsized outparcelled, building.
When Boeing decided to build the 747 – a plane so big it would become known around the world as the jumbo jet – they had to build a factory large enough to build several of them at the same time.
If you’ve ever seen a 747 from close quarters you’ll know just how giant Boeing’s jumbo is. So it’s no surprise the factory which ended up building has to be very big indeed.
How big? Try the biggest enclosed building in the world.
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Boeing started work on the Everett factory in 1967, just as the Boeing 747 project was starting to gather pace. Bill Allen, Boeing’s charismatic chief, had realised the company would need a huge amount of space if they were going to build an airliner big enough to carry 400 passengers. They chose an area of woodland some 22 miles (35km) north of Seattle, near an airport that had served as a fighter base during World War Two.
The site had only minor road access to the nearest highway and no railway connection, and in the forest wild bears roamed
An article in the Daily Herald, Everett’s local paper, recalls just how out of the way the airport was. According to Joe Sutter, the engineer who masterminded the 747 project, the site had only minor road access to the nearest highway and no railway connection. In the forest roamed wild bears.
Aircraft being constructed at Everett
The factory now produces the newer generations of Boeing airliners
At the same time Boeing was building the prototype of the world’s biggest airliner, it was also having to construct the factory to make them in.
Today, the Everett factory easily dwarfs any other building in the world by volume, with the Guinness Book of Records reporting that it occupies 472 million cubic feet (13.3 million cubic metres).
“We’ve overlaid the building over some of the most famous landmarks around the world,” says David Reese, who helps runs the factory tours at Everett. “We have various famous places like Versailles, the Vatican and Disneyland, and you see them when you start the factory tour.
Everett’s main building covers 97.8 acres (39 hectares), more than 30 times as big as London’s Trafalgar Square
“I remember I did an interview with the BBC a few years ago, and I thought ‘I wonder what the volume of Wembley Stadium is?’ Well, it turns out you can fit 13 of them in the volume of our factory.”
The Everett plant still produces a dwindling number of 747 freighters, but today it mostly concentrates on the smaller 767, 777 and 787 models. To build that fleet of planes requires lots of room. Everett’s main building covers 97.8 acres (39 hectares), more than 30 times as big as London’s Trafalgar Square.
Everett Factory under constrcution
Boeing had to build the new factory at the same time it was designing the 747
Each shift has as many as 10,000 workers, and there are three shifts each day. Over the course of 24 hours, the factory has a population only a little less than the Australian city of Alice Springs.Reese has worked for Boeing for 38 years – 11 of them running the factory tours – but says he can still remember his first impression of the factory. “It was very awe-inspiring the first time – and I would have to say every day since, too. It changes constantly. Each day there’s something new.”
The Everett factory is so big that there’s a fleet of some 1,300 bicycles on hand to help cut travel time. It has its own fire station and medical services on station, and an array of cafes and restaurants to feed the thousands of workers. Overhead are a multitude of cranes used to move some of the heavier aircraft parts as the planes start to take shape. The operators, Reese says, are some of the most highly skilled and best-paid workers at the factory.
In summer, if it gets too hot, Reese says, they just open the massive doors to let in the breeze
There are a few rules for working in, or even just visiting, the factory. “We do require proper footwear, so no open-toed shoes and no high heels for the ladies – anything that could possibly cause a fall or damage your feet – and you have to wear safety glasses at all times in the factory. Constantly. That can be an issue with some of our visitors, they say things like ‘Oh, I wear reading glasses, that will be enough.’ It’s not.”
The factory boasts some surprising features. While there is ventilation, there is no air conditioning. In summer, if it gets too hot, Reese says, they just open the massive doors to let in the breeze. In winter, the effect of the more than one million lights, the huge amount of electric equipment and some 10,000 human bodies also helps moderate the temperatures. “I only have to wear a sweater or a light jacket and that’s sufficient.”
There is a longstanding urban myth that the building is so large and high that it has it's own weather, clouds form at the top of it. Not quite so, says Reese. “The building was still being constructed as the first plane was being built, and one wall was not yet enclosed. We think that fog or mist from the outside and accumulated in the building, and it looked like a kind of hazy atmosphere.
Aircraft outside the Everett factory
The finished aircraft are towed over a bridge to a nearby airport
“It’s the same thing when we had wildfires nearby, it got pretty hazy inside the factory.”
Reese says the factory’s days have an ebb and flow, the factory changing tasks as the day progresses. “The second shift, that’s when there’s more crane activity when there isn’t quite as many people.
“When we move a finished aircraft out of the factory it’s driven over a freeway to an airport nearby, and in order not to startle the drivers too much, we tend to do that at night.”
Not just the world’s biggest building, but full of surprises too.
--Building the Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger plane
Road Trip 2011: We get a firsthand look at how the double-decker behemoth that is Airbus' A380 is assembled inside the largest industrial building in Europe. It's a sight to behold
BLAGNAC, France--What would you do with nearly 6,000 square feet of private airplane?
That's the question I'm asking myself as I look up at what will soon be one of the largest private planes in the world--an Airbus A380 slated for an unknown buyer. Two full decks of luxury in the sky, right in front of me, and sadly, I won't get to see what it looks like.
But I do get to see how A380s are made. As part of Road Trip 2011, I've come here to Airbus' Jean-Luc Lagardere plant, just outside Toulouse, France, where the aviation giant does the final assembly of the A380, the world's largest passenger plane.
There are, of course, longer planes--Airbus' own A340-600, and Boeing's 777-ER and 747-8 Intercontinental--but none of them can carry more passengers. And for anyone who's seen an A380, there's no question why: it's a full double-decker plane, the first of its kind.
Never mind how big the main deck is; the upper deck is as big as a full Airbus A330. All told, the plane can carry 525 passengers in a standard 3-class configuration, and theoretically, more than 800 if the plane was all economy class.
We take you inside the Airbus A380 factory
Go inside Airbus's factory in France where the company assembles the ginormous A380 passenger airplane.
Making the massive Airbus A380 (photos)
34 PHOTOS
But I'm not here to talk about numbers of passengers. I'm here to see these giant planes get made. The plant, which was purpose-built just for the A380, is the largest industrial building in Europe, according to Riccardo Spimpolo, an A380 product marketing senior analyst and my host for the day.
I've seen big planes getting built before. Several times, I've visited Boeing's Everett, Wash., plant--the biggest building by volume on Earth--and seen that company's assembly of both its 747-400 and all-new 747-8 Intercontinental planes. So I'm somewhat familiar with how these things work.
But stepping inside the plant here, I'm quickly surprised. Here, the A380 is assembled--at least its major exterior components--all at one station. They are shipped here in a convoy, brought inside the building, and then craned over to what's known as Station 40, a giant "jig," Spimpolo calls it, where the plane slowly comes together as one part after another--a wing, the tail, a tail fin--is joined to the giant fuselage.
While Airbus has been doing final assembly on its planes here for years, it needed new space for the A380, so it purchased land near its existing plants and put this building up. In 2005, the first A380 was assembled here, joining major components that were manufactured in Airbus plants in Germany, England, France, and Spain.
Currently, an A380 spends a little more than a week in the jig at Station 40, Spimpolo said, and for now, that means one new plane is being assembled at a time. The plant's capacity allows it to turn out four A380s a month, but at the moment, that pace is more like 2.5 a month, he explained. By about the end of 2012, the plant should be up to capacity.
The Airbus A380 is assembled inside a giant set of scaffolding known as a giant 'jig' at a company facility near Toulouse, France.
Once assembly of the major components is done, the plane is backed out of the building and brought in through the next (giant) door over, where it will be parked at one of three slots in what's known as Station 30. There, all the A380's interior systems will be added--electrical, hydraulics, the cockpit, doors, engines, and so on. Airbus can work on three different A380s at a time in Station 30, and indeed today, there are three lined up here, including what will surely soon be the winner of the world's most decadent private plane award. There are also two A380s being worked on for a major European airline.
The planes will be at Station 30 for about three weeks, Spimpolo said, after which they are taken outside for a monthlong series of final work-throughs that include cabin pressurization, fuel leak, and engine tests. After that, you've basically got an A380 that's ready to go, and each plane at this point is flown to Hamburg, Germany, where it is then painted, fitted with its interior cabinetry, and handed over along with its keys, to its new owner.
At some point, Spimpolo said, this whole operation could be doubled in size. The plant was specifically built twice as big than is needed for current production with the idea that someday, the A380 market might demand twice as many planes. If that happens, you'd basically take the entire process described above, and replicate it: two planes at Station 40, six at Station 30, and so on. Assembly would not be any faster.
The jig
Given that the A380 is the world's largest passenger plane, you don't expect it to be essentially swallowed up by the giant scaffolding that surrounds the area where it's assembled. Yet walking inside the facility here, that was pretty much exactly my first impression.And that should give you a sense of the size of the jig. Actually, though, the jig has two major components: one for the front of the plane, from in front of its wings to the nose, and another for the wings and behind. The front section is fixed in place, and anchored to the ground, because the tools that are used for the assembly of the front of the plane need to be completely stable. But from the wings back, the jig is movable, on a set of tracks in the ground, that allow it to slide out of the way so the plane can be backed out of the building after its time at Station 40 is done.
But while you would never want to trivialize the complexity of building a giant airplane like the A380, it seems that at Station 40, at least, assembly boils down to a case of fitting a group of carefully selected pieces together. Writ very large, of course. Spimpolo makes this point when showing me the end of a wing laid out on the floor of the building: all the systems inside the wing are a bit further down its length. At the very end are the elements that will fit nicely into place in the fuselage. The same goes for the tail, the tail fins, and so on.
"It's a very, very delicate process." The workers have to be "very gentle, very exact, and very perfect."
--Riccardo Spimpolo, Airbus product marketing senior analyst
Over at Station 30, one of the first things you see is that this giant plane seems to be floating--and in a way it is. Its front wheel is, in fact, about 5 feet off the ground, the fuselage having been lifted up that far so the landing gear can be installed from below. Once the landing gear is fully joined, the plane can finally be lowered down to rest on its own weight.
Then there are the engines. They are one of the only major components that don't come on the convoys that snake their way through the French countryside from a port in Bordeaux to the plant here. That's because the engines are the property of the planes' owners, even before they take delivery of the A380s, Spimpolo said. The airlines negotiate the purchase of the engines directly from Rolls-Royce or the Engine Alliance (General Electric and Pratt & Whitney), the two makers of A380 engines. "We receive, install, and keep [them] for the shortest possible [time]," Spimpolo said. Airbus doesn't "intervene" in that process.
Quiet
My tour of the A380 final assembly plant took place on a normal weekday afternoon, but walking into the giant building, I would have sworn it was a weekend. There was (almost) none of the industrial racket I'd grown used to from visits to other manufacturing facilities--drilling, hammering, sawing, soldering, and so on. Instead, it was eerily quiet, especially when we moved to Station 30.
I mentioned that to Spimpolo, who agreed that it was quiet on the floor. But then he pointed out that in fact, there were hundreds of people, if not more, at work on the three planes at Station 30--they were just all inside the three soon-to-be A380s. From the outside, though, it might as well have been a holiday. But maybe it was just because of the nature of the work. "It's a very, very delicate process," Spimpolo said of working on an A380. The workers have to be "very gentle, very exact, and very perfect."
Flying Real Estate
So now the tour is at an end, and we're staring at the private A380, thinking about the nearly 6,000 square feet of flying real estate, and wondering what it will be like inside. Even my hosts--Spimpolo and a woman from Airbus communications--have no idea how that plane will be outfitted. Airbus doesn't do that work--for private customers, the interior is designed by a third party. But our imaginations start to run wild. Movie theaters. Bowling alleys. Swimming pools (can that even be done?). We'd all like to know. But we never will.
--Was it a mistake for Airbus to build the SuperJumbo of Jumbo Jets - A380?
At the time the first sketches were going up on the drawing board, no. By the time it was in preproduction, yes.
One thing to keep in mind is that Airbus started the design work on the A380 in 1988, as a competitor to Boeing’s 747 in the “very large aircraft” category. Deregulation had been in place for a decade, and the growth in air travel with resulting congestion of airports was making it look pretty smart to “bet big” on using VLAs to maximize the passenger-to-aircraft ratio and thus reduce the congestion in the more expensive part of the airport to expand.
However, several key things happened in between those initial design conception meetings and the rollout of the first production A380:
* The rise of the low-cost carrier. Traditional airlines in the 90s found that hypercompetition on price had arrived in the airline industry. For a while, there was a notable “you get what you pay for” difference between the traditional carriers’ full-service cabins and the much more stripped-down all-economy amenities of carriers like Southwest, but with more choices between airlines than previously existed at most airports, and competition on price over luxury dominating the market, the airline game began to favor a “rightsized” fleet of aircraft with a good median number of seats given the airline’s passenger demand for each flight, that were then “overbooked” to ensure as many planes as possible were as full as possible to maximize revenue.
* 9/11/2001. You can’t talk about air travel in the United States (or really anywhere in the world) without acknowledging the elephant in the room. The 9/11 attacks forever changed how the world views air travel, and how governments scrutinize the people who use it. The result of the increased hassle of getting through U.S. security checkpoints, coupled with the rise of wireless communications and videoconferencing in the IT world that provided a viable alternative to standing in line for two hours with your shoes and personal effects in a grey tub for the world to see, was a dramatic reduction in air travel. You flew if you absolutely had to. This further emphasized smaller planes to ensure they’d be fuller.
* ETOPS. Often humorously backronymed as “engines turn or passengers swim”, an ETOPS rating is required for any aircraft used for a flight that takes it further than a nominal glide distance from the nearest usable airstrip at any given time. Traditionally, planes needed three engines or more to be rated for these flights, but these regulations were changed to allow for modern high-reliability twin-engine aircraft like the 777 and 787 to run these long-haul flights. This broke the 747’s chokehold on long international routes and meant a much harder sell for the A380; ER two-engine jets could now make the same flight using significantly less fuel and handling almost as many passengers. By the time the A380 entered the long-haul market, Boeing had all but cornered it even at the expense of its own 747, introducing more economical alternatives for the reduced passenger counts of the “naughties”.
* Urban redevelopment including new airport capacity. Most large cities in the west expanded their existing airports or opened new ones in less-crowded suburbs between conception and introduction of the A380.
As a result, by the time Airbus began taking preorders for the A380, the idea of a superjumbo was already in decline as a viable airline strategy. It only works for a few niche players who specialize in ultra-long-haul flights, such as Qantas (which operates the longest pair of nonstop flights in the world from Sydney to DFW and back) and Emirates Airlines (U.S. major airports to Dubai and back). Lufthansa, British Airways and a few others ordered a few each for similar transoceanic flights, and freight companies were interested in a stripped-down flying box that could increase lift capacity per plane by 50% but as a domestic passenger carrier, it just didn’t fly (pun intended).
In addition, the A380 itself, while a technological marvel in the civilian aerospace sector, ended up causing more problems than it solved for airlines and airport operators:
* Production problems. The A380 was plagued by process problems in the manufacturing line which significantly delayed initial deliveries and ultimately caused Airbus to cancel the freight variant (sending FedEx, UPS and other package couriers to Boeing for 747–8Fs and 777-ERFs)
* Gate space. As a full double-decker, the A380 needs a lot of wing area in proportion to the fuselage. They’re so honking big that even terminals designed for the wingspan needs of the 747 simply cannot handle any aircraft at adjacent gates with a superjumbo on the ramp. Airport terminals had to be specially built or renovated to take an A380, and even some major airports like DFW can only handle one at a time (at Terminal D, Gate 16/17 at the southwest corner).
* Wake turbulence. Wings produce lift in part by forcing air downward as it passes over the wing (Bernoulli’s principle is actually only a relatively small contributor to total lift, especially at critical phases of flight like takeoff and landing). This downward sheet of airflow produces turbulent air behind any aircraft; the more lift, the more turbulence. In addition, very special cases of turbulence occur at the wingtips, where air over the wing that is being forced down is right next to air that isn’t passing over the wing and is less disturbed. This relative movement of layers of air past each other produces a vortex. The turbulence behind large airliners is very dangerous to light aircraft, and the A380 is so big that its wake can be a problem even for other airliners. To avoid the wake, air traffic controllers have to increase the spacing behind an A380 to allow the wake to dissipate and drop in altitude. That reduces the number of “aircraft movements” into and out of an airport around the schedule of any A380s.
* It’s not big enough to solve the problems it was designed to do. That may sound unbelievable, especially with the previous points about the problems it causes at its current size, but the load limits of the A380 require you to choose only one out of three crucial weight considerations; you can maximize passenger count, cargo weight, or range with fuel. An A380 in an all-economy configuration supporting its theoretical maximum passenger count of almost 700 people would not be able to make it off the runway if each of those passengers had one 50-pound checked bag in the hold. Even if they were all flying with just carry-on luggage, the aircraft couldn’t make it more than a thousand miles or so on the available fuel at MTOW, putting most of the busiest routes out of range. This is one reason Emirates uses their A380s for ultra-luxury flights, with first-class staterooms, a bar, showers etc; they pretty much have to, because they can’t fit any more passengers or cargo given the fuel needs of the 12-hour nonstop flight, so the only way the plane makes money is to provide a six-star experience with accompanying price tag.
* Four engines, when fuel was at it’s highest price since the 380’s conception. The ultimate downfall of the superjumbo is that even chock full of ticketed passengers, you’re using more fuel per passenger-mile to turn four engines than you would if you used a two-engine jet. Even Emirates, the largest A380 operator, has plenty of 777ER planes as the first alternative when an A380 just isn’t profitable.
Ah but there are other designs afoot.... now imagine the building required to built an even bigger airplane, that carry and launch other airspacecraft(s).... --'The ultimate adventure': "It's not just a thrill ride" -- Virgin Galactic's space tourism plan demands courage and $250K
Space travel isn't just for astronauts anymore. Virgin Galactic is poised to change everything.
@Wk2androver
Scaled Composites White Knight Two - Wikipedia
The Scaled Composites Model 348 White Knight Two ( WK2) is a jet-powered cargo aircraft that is used to lift the SpaceShipTwo spacecraft to release altitude. It was developed by Scaled Composites from 2007 to 2010 as the first stage of Tier 1b, a two-stage to suborbital-space manned launch system.
WhiteKnightTwo, the plane that carries Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo to an altitude of 50,000 feet for its rocket launch to 50 miles high, taxis down the runway on a recent morning for a test flight near the company's California facility in Mojave.
MOJAVE, Calif. – Deep inside The Spaceship Company’s secretive Building 79, a man points to a rigid but lightweight panel made from carbon fiber that is the thickness of two decks of cards.
The absurdity of what he’s about to say makes him smile.
“There’s just about 1 inch between you and space,” says Enrico Palermo, president of Virgin's The Spaceship Company, which is tasked with building the plane-like crafts that Virgin Galactic plans to use to take paying customers on a joy ride into the cosmos next year.
“That’s it, 1 inch,” says Palermo, pointing at the thin hull material and shaking his head during a tour of the facility in November. “Amazing what humans can do.”
Especially when it comes to space. Venturing into the cosmos has always packed a thrill, a risk, an adventure and a cost in both dollars and lives. It was always down to government agencies and professional astronauts to pay that price and reap those rewards. But no longer.
Virgin Group founder Richard Branson stands before Virgin Spaceship Unity, otherwise known as SpaceShipTwo, during its unveiling at the company's Mojave, California, headquarters in 2016. VSS Unity is built by Virgin-owned The Spaceship Company, and is a new craft designed in the wake of a 2014 flight in which a pilot died. (Photo: Virgin Galactic)
If all goes to plan, though admittedly little in the realm of space exploration does, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic could be the first of a few tech-titan-fueled private space ventures to blast ordinary humans into space and return them safely to Earth.
The company's tourism spaceship hit a new target Thursday, for the first time soaring more than 50 miles above California’s Mojave Desert. "SpaceShipTwo, welcome to space," the company wrote on its Twitter account after the test. But whether Virgin Galactic becomes merely a thrill ride for those with $250,000 for a ticket or a giant leap for mankind remains a looming question.
For his part, Branson is confident his new company will be both, a unique adventure whose payoff – the so-called Overview Effect, where humans gape in wide-eyed awe at our big blue marble from 50 miles high – will generate a protective love of home.
“We will provide a platform for those (Virgin Galactic customers) to share their experiences and accelerate the global understanding of a fundamental truth, that we are essentially all in this together, fellow passengers on spaceship Earth,” Branson told USA TODAY in an email exchange.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket company envisions humans living and working in space.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket company envisions humans living and working in space. (Photo: Blue Origin)
“I am,” he adds, “one of those who feels reasonably optimistic for the future of planet Earth as a good place for humans to live, despite the huge challenges.”
With his “leave Earth to appreciate it” mission statement, Branson is taking a tack that differs from that of Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, whose Blue Origin rocket company envisions humans living and working in space, or SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who famously is aiming for human colonization of Mars.
But where Blue Origin officials say only that tickets go on sale next year for its autonomous space ride and SpaceX has plans to send up a lone customer as more of a one-off venture, Virgin Galactic is making noises that 2019 could bring regular customer trips out of its futuristic Spaceport in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.
Some might not be holding their breath. Virgin Galactic has a history of promising imminent flights dating back a decade. In 2008, Branson predicted an inaugural flight within 18 months, and reiterated that timing in 2011. In the spring of 2013, Branson predicted he'd be space-bound by Christmas, perhaps dressed as Santa.
Missed targets aside, at the very least a spirit of competition between three men who have been passionate about cosmic adventures has spawned a new space race.
“Elon and Jeff and Richard have looked at the human-based (government space) programs that existed and concluded rightly they weren’t keeping pace,” says Christian Davenport, author of “The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos.”
Climb aboard the world's first Spaceliner
If all goes according to plan, Virgin Galactic could be the first to blast ordinary humans to space and return them safely to Earth. How the SpaceShipTwo would send people to space:
“These folks come out of the tech world, or in Richard’s case he’s funded all sorts of ventures, and they operate at a quick pace,” Davenport says. “There’s overall a huge frustration that, after NASA stepped away (from the Space Shuttle program), that we haven’t pushed farther into space. No one’s flown (tourists) into space. But Virgin Galactic now is getting close.”
Tour starts with a dawn flight
We recently visited the company’s longtime desert-based headquarters two hours north of Los Angeles to check on the company’s progress as it races toward its first commercial launch.
Each 90-minute Virgin Galactic trip will star two pilots and six passengers, including on the inaugural ride with Branson and his two children, Sam and Holly, as well as for the first of 600 customers who have already paid for flights (they're refundable, if you opt to bail).
The rare facility tour – which was focused on a series of cavernous buildings dedicated to manufacturing and testing its plane-like SpaceShipTwo (SS2) – kicked off with a dawn launch of WhiteKnightTwo (WK2), the massive, albatross-shaped mother ship that carries SS2 50,000 feet for its airborne launch.
Virgin Galactic test pilot Dave Mackay, shown here prior to a recent dawn test flight of mother ship WhiteKnightTwo behind him, will be one of a half-dozen pilots tasked with ferrying paying customers up to the limits of space, 50 miles above the Earth's surface. He says each test trip makes him feel like a "little kid" again.
As the gangly white craft taxied down the runway, Virgin Galactic chief pilot Dave Mackay, an amiable Scot who is one of a half-dozen experienced fliers slated to ferry customers into the great beyond, waxed lyrical about the joy ride.
“We’ve all been around the block,” says the former Royal Air Force and ex-Virgin Airlines pilot. “But when we do these tests (of SS2), we’re just like little kids again.”
Mackay runs through the sequence that Virgin Galactic customers will experience. After strapping into their reclining seats, SS2 is taken to just above commercial jet altitudes by WK2. “We’ll talk a bit, but won’t bore them,” Mackay says with a laugh.
Climb aboard the world's first spaceliner
At cruising altitude, things get serious. WK2 drops SS2 and banks away sharply. “You’ll feel like you just went over the lip of a roller coaster,” says Mackay. Just under four seconds later, with WK2 safely away, pilots will light the rocket aboard SS2, a solid rubber compound that is ignited by nitrous oxide.
“That’s when the fun starts,” says Mackay, a veteran of numerous such test flights as Virgin Galactic pushes toward commercial readiness. SS2 suddenly takes off like a Roman candle, heading straight up and subjecting passengers to four times the force of Earth-bound gravity.
Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo uses a controllable rocket motor to blast it to 50 miles above the Earth in about 60 seconds, subjecting paying customers a pressure that is roughly three times the gravity felt on Earth.
Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo uses a controllable rocket motor to blast it to 50 miles above the Earth in about 60 seconds, subjecting paying customers a pressure that is roughly three times the gravity felt on Earth. (Photo: Virgin Galactic)
Pushing speeds close to Mach 3, or three times the speed of sound, SS2 will take roughly 60 seconds to reach the blackness of space, which officially starts at 50 miles up.
And then, almost instantly, silence as the rocket exhausts itself. SS2 then will gracefully pivot upside down, giving the new astronauts an unfettered view of the earth through 12 big portholes.
“They can then unbuckle and float around,” he says of the few minutes of weightless that mark the defining moment of the trip. “Then it’s back in the seats and the flight back home.”
'The ultimate adventure trip'
For those waiting to board SS2, the moment of truth can’t come soon enough.
Vivien Cornish, 54, was given a ticket to ride by her husband to mark her 50th birthday. The retired money manager from Sydney says she doesn’t like cars or jewelry but has “always been into adventure travel, and this is the ultimate adventure trip.”
Cornish says she has met some of her fellow ticket holders – which Virgin Galactic calls Future Astronauts – at sponsored trips that so far have included group visits to the California headquarters, attendance at air races in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and a gathering at Branson’s retreat on Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands.
Australian Vivien Cornish, shown here during a visit to Virgin Galactic's Mojave headquarters, is among 600 space fans who have paid $250,000 for a ride on SpaceShipTwo, shown behind Cornish. (Photo: Virgin Galactic)
“For some people, it’s all about the zero G experience, but for me it’s about the Overview Effect,” she says. “Earth is wonderful and we have to look after it.”
For businessman and philanthropist David Perez, 55, of Solano Beach, California, buying a ticket on Virgin Galactic was an instant impulse purchase.
“What, there’s 8 billion people on Earth but only a thousand have been to space, and I’ll be the first Moroccan Jew in space,” says Perez, laughing.
Like some of his fellow Future Astronauts, Perez has tried to make sure he stays in good shape for his eventual trip. Virgin Galactic says that anyone who is reasonably healthy should be eligible for the journey.
The most difficult parts of the trip will be the 4G force while ascending and the zero gravity experience in that it could make some travelers nauseous.
David Perez, who is excited about being the first Moroccan-decent Jew in space, strikes a pose in front of the Virgin Galactic spaceship that will take him 50 miles high.
David Perez, who is excited about being the first Moroccan-decent Jew in space, strikes a pose in front of the Virgin Galactic spaceship that will take him 50 miles high. (Photo: Virgin Galactic)
But, ultimately, it’s up to customers, who no doubt will sign lengthy waivers, to try and be in the best condition possible to maximize their quarter-million-dollar trek.
“Who knows if I’ll blow up and die,” says Perez. “But I just love being part of this community of people pursuing their passions and dreams.”
2014: A death but not a setback
Death, as in the grim reaper, has in fact visited the Virgin Galactic effort.
On Halloween 2014, test co-pilot Michael Alsbury lost his life when an early iteration of SS2 broke up in flight. Co-pilot Peter Siebold was seriously injured on his 10-mile fall back to Earth.
A National Transportation Safety Board investigation found that the craft, which was built by Scaled Composites, did not have enough safeguards in place to prevent the pilot-error incident.
A wall in Mojave, Calif., long a legendary spot for the testing of experimental aircraft, is dedicated to those pilots who have lost their life in pushing the aeronautic envelope for mankind. One was Michael Alsbury, who died in 2014 during a test flight of a previous generation of Virgin Galactic spaceships. The NTSB said a poorly designed system of controls led to the pilot error and resulted in Alsbury's death and the injury of his co-pilot. Virgin's new spacecrafts have been radically redesigned to avoid another such catastrophe.
SpaceShipTwo - Wikipedia
On 31 October 2014, during a test flight, VSS Enterprise , the first SpaceShipTwo craft, broke up in flight and crashed in the Mojave desert. A preliminary investigation suggested the feathering system, the craft's descent device, deployed too early. One pilot was killed; the other was treated for a serious shoulder injury after parachuting from the stricken spacecraft.
A wall in Mojave, Calif., long a legendary spot for the testing of experimental aircraft, is dedicated to those pilots who have lost their life in pushing the aeronautic envelope for mankind. One was Michael Alsbury, who died in 2014 during a test flight of a previous generation of Virgin Galactic spaceships. The NTSB said a poorly designed system of controls led to the pilot error and resulted in Alsbury's death and the injury of his co-pilot. Virgin's new spacecrafts have been radically redesigned to avoid another such catastrophe.
Not far from Virgin Galactic’s compound there is a small memorial for a half-dozen pilots who have died while testing in and around Mojave, California, a storied location where fabled Air Force ace Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in 1947.
Next to a plaque with Alsbury’s name and photo sits a bouquet of flowers, fresh like the memories of his tragic death.
“That was a terrible time for us,” Mackay says quietly. “But now the morale is good. Mike was a lovely guy and he wouldn’t have wanted us to stop. So part of the reason to continue testing was the sacrifice he made.”
Mackay looks up at the cloudless blue sky. “Space isn’t easy,” he says. “People have been dying in this pursuit from the get-go. So we’re just building on the shoulders of those giants. They weren’t crazy, but let’s just say they had a different approach to risk.”
Video Credit: ©Virgin Galactic (silent)
http://www.virgingalactic.com
Shown here at a news conference following the 2014 crash of their spaceship Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson, left, and CEO George Whitesides address reporters. The NTSB investigation found that poor design led to the pilot-error that caused the crash. Virgin then formed its own company, The Spaceship Company, to build its own redesigned craft in the wake of the incident. (Photo: AP)
After the crash, Virgin Galactic began using SS2s built by its Spaceship Company. Branson says Virgin Galactic engineers are relying on increasingly sophisticated technologies that build new levels of safety into a space launch.
These include ferocious rockets that nonetheless can be shut off if necessary and advanced composites that provide not only high levels of structural rigidity but also the critical bonus of spacecraft reusability that keeps space travel costs in check.
“That isn’t to say that we can eliminate all risk or that getting to a point where it’s appropriate to start flying paying passengers was ever going to be quick or easy,” he says, adding that nonetheless “with patience and perseverance we will be capable of delivering a repeatable experience at levels of safety that both we and our customers require.” Virgin Galactic engineers work on one of two more SpaceShipTwo crafts that are in progress at the company's headquarters in Mojave, Calif. Eventually, the company hopes to have as many as six spaceships, which could theoretically allow for multiple flights a week into space.
Virgin Galactic engineers work on one of two more SpaceShipTwo crafts that are in progress at the company's headquarters in Mojave, Calif. Eventually, the company hopes to have as many as six spaceships, which could theoretically allow for multiple flights a week into space.
That buoyed optimism is met with some skepticism from David Cowan, a longtime space company investor with Bessemer Venture Partners in Menlo Park, California.
“The word tourism (in space tourism) belies the risk of early civilian missions,” says Cowan, who maintains that one fatal accident will “inevitably and episodically” suspend ventures such as Virgin Galactic for months or years.
Cowan allows that Branson’s “raw ambition and ego are authentic,” and combined may well find Virgin Galactic able to achieve lift off.
But the investor is less bullish on an oft-mentioned by-product of Virgin Galactic’s high tech efforts: The development of a 21st-century version of the Concorde that would allow supersonic travel from New York to Sydney in just a couple of hours.
“There are safer, cheaper and more practical supersonic programs underway to succeed the Concorde,” he says.
Early shots of two more spaceships that Virgin Galactic is busy assembling in Mojave, Calif. While these planes are designed to go into space and return to Earth in the same spot, Virgin founder Richard Branson has expressed interest in perhaps using such technology for point-to-point transcontinental travel, much like the service provide by the now-shuttered Concorde.
Early shots of two more spaceships that Virgin Galactic is busy assembling in Mojave, Calif. While these planes are designed to go into space and return to Earth in the same spot, Virgin founder Richard Branson has expressed interest in perhaps using such technology for point-to-point transcontinental travel, much like the service provide by the now-shuttered Concorde. (Photo: Virgin Galactic)
Branson insists he’d “love to be a part of” transcontinental travel that could reduce endless flight times while cutting down on the jet-fuel-pollution associated with such 15-hour journeys by Boeing or Airbus.
“We have been traveling around now at around Mach 0.8 using fossil fuels for more than half a century and it’s time to seriously pursue faster and cleaner options,” he says, adding that this is why Virgin Galactic designed SS2 as a “winged runway take-off and landing vehicle.”
A cross between a jet and 'Star Trek'
Standing next to SS2, the craft comes across as a hybrid of current and future tech. From the front, it looks like a Gulfstream private jet; from the rear, with its massive rear wing “feathers” that help with rotation and re-entry glide, it seems like a Romulan Bird of Prey straight out of "Star Trek."
But despite the far-out nature of the spaceship, personal touches abound here inside the giant hangar.
Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, also known as VSS Unity, undergoes checks before its next test flight at the company's private facility in Mojave, Calif. The illustration of the woman floating in space on the fuselage is said to be drawn from a youthful photo of founder Richard Branson's mother, Eve. The spaceship looks like a cross between a Gulfstream jet and something out of "Star Trek."
Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, also known as VSS Unity, undergoes checks before its next test flight at the company's private facility in Mojave, Calif. The illustration of the woman floating in space on the fuselage is said to be drawn from a youthful photo of founder Richard Branson's mother, Eve. The spaceship looks like a cross between a Gulfstream jet and something out of "Star Trek."
Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo successor completes first test flight
Virgin Galactic's successor to its SpaceShipTwo spacecraft has successfully performed its first unpowered glide and landing. The event comes two years after the tragic fatal crash of the spaceship's first iteration over the Mojave Desert, when pilot Michael Alsbury was killed and his co-pilot Peter Siebold seriously injured.
For example, painted on the side of this SS2 is a shapely model wearing a clear helmet, floating in space. The portrait is said to be based on a 1940s photograph of Branson’s intrepid mother, Eve, now 94. (Eve is also the apt nickname for WK2, the mother ship that brings SS2 aloft.)
Next to the woman is a logo that clearly looks like an eye’s iris; it is, in fact, an exact copy of the iris belonging to the late Stephen Hawking, who long maintained that space would be the only way for humans to escape extinction.
Just across the way from this parked vessel sit the fuselages of two more SS2s in construction, currently dubbed Etta and Artie, the names of Branson’s twin grandchildren from his daughter Holly.
Between Etta and Artie and the up-and-flying Unity, Virgin Galactic will have three SS2s able to send a total of 18 people into space on a regular basis.
How regular? One flight a week could be possible soon, while the addition of a second WhiteKnightTwo and three more SS2s could allow for three flights a week. Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnightTwo, the mother ship that cradles SpaceShipTwo under its wings, gets checked out before another dawn test flight. WK2 takes SS2 up to 50,000 feet, then drops it. The rocket fires on SS2, and carries the craft straight up for 60 seconds, eventually reaching space at 50 miles high.
Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnightTwo, the mother ship that cradles SpaceShipTwo under its wings, gets checked out before another dawn test flight. WK2 takes SS2 up to 50,000 feet, then drops it. The rocket fires on SS2, and carries the craft straight up for 60 seconds, eventually reaching space at 50 miles high. (Photo: Virgin Galactic)
But, company officials insist, nothing will be rushed. SS2 is continuing its regular test flights, with so far dozens being held to check its re-entry gliding ability and six with rocket power.
To date, the rockets have burned for as long as 41 seconds, working their way up to the 60-second burn required for Virgin Galactic’s regular parabolic space flights.
Galactic CEO: 'Heads down on safety'
“We are heads down on safety all the time, otherwise there’s no business model,” says George Whitesides, a former NASA chief of staff under the Obama Administration who joined Virgin Galactic as CEO in 2010.
“What we are doing will only help the country’s standing when it comes to space ventures,” he says. “The U.S. leads the world in (rocket) launches, and give us a year and we’ll be leading in human space flight. We will open space up for the rest of us.”
And so the work continues here at Virgin Galactic’s compound in the harsh quiet of the California desert. There’s carbon fiber to bake, a spaceship interior to design and aircraft to test and retest.
But SS2 pilot Mackay can’t wait for that moment he’s given the green light to launch somewhere high above New Mexico.
Want to go to space soon? One way may be on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, which for $250,000 will take you up 50 miles and turn you into an astronaut.
VSS Unity - Wikipedia
VSS Unity, the second SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane for Virgin Galactic, is the first SpaceShipTwo built by The Spaceship Company. The ship's name was announced on 19 February 2016. Prior to the naming announcement, the craft was referred to as SpaceShipTwo, Serial Number Two.
Want to go to space soon? One way may be on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, which for $250,000 will take you up 50 miles and turn you into an astronaut.
With every trip into and beyond the stratosphere, he and his fellow pilots are seeing things that cannot be captured by any photo or video, images of space and earth that remain imprinted on his soul. He’s eager to share that view, and see the looks on the faces of his fortunate passengers.
“The sky is a matte black, and the earth’s surface is just so bright, and then you see the atmosphere, so thin, like the skin around an apple,” says Mackay.
“That’s when it hits you hard, we’re all part of this human race,” he says. “You see, if for a moment, where we humans are in the solar system and it is just, well, to be honest, it’s a feeling I cannot describe.”
Stratolaunch revives its vision of launching space plane from world’s biggest airplane
Stratolaunch airplane
An aerial view shows the Stratolaunch airplane outside its hangar in May 2017. The twin-fuselage aircraft is the world’s largest airplane, measured by wingspan. (Stratolaunch Photo)
Microsoft late co-founder Paul Allen’s Stratolaunch space venture is returning to an idea it’s long mulled over: launching payloads, and possibly people, into orbit on a reusable space plane.
The concept, known internally as “Black Ice,” would involve the midflight launch of a space shuttle-like vehicle from what will be the world’s largest airplane. It was mentioned today in The Post, in an excerpt adapted from Post reporter Christian Davenport’s forthcoming book, “The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos.”
“I would love to see us have a full reusable system and have weekly, if not more often, airport-style, repeatable operations going,” Allen told Davenport during a Seattle interview.
In a statement emailed to GeekspeakWire, Stratolaunch confirmed its interest in the concept.
“Our vision for Stratolaunch is to offer a broad spectrum of capabilities from small, medium, to fully reusable,” the company said. “Black Ice is an aspirational concept we are exploring; however, no decisions have been made yet.”
The late Paul Allen founded Stratolaunch back in 2011, and right now, the company’s first priority is to get its six-engine, twin-fuselage, 385-foot-wingspan airplane — nicknamed Roc, after a mythical giant bird — fully tested and into the air.
Last week, the company reported that the plane went through a successful series of high-speed taxi tests at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. Stratolaunch has said ">test flights could begin by 2019.
Once Roc passes all its tests, Stratolaunch aims to fit rockets onto the mothership, drop them from high altitude, and launch satellite payloads into orbit. The company already is partnering with Orbital ATK on the rockets, and there may be other partners in the works as well.
The reusable space plane concept could be the focus of a follow-up phase in Stratolaunch’s development plan.
As described, the Black Ice space plane would be about as big as NASA’s now-retired space shuttle and capable of staying in orbit for at least three days. Its main purpose, at least at first, would be to deploy small satellites and experiments robotically.
“The capabilities of these small satellites is something that’s really interesting and fascinating, both for communications, where a lot of people are putting up constellations of satellites for monitoring the challenged health of our planet,” Davenport quotes Allen as saying.
Such satellites could be used to monitor wildlife conservation efforts and illegal fishing, two of Allen’s big philanthropic interests.
The space plane could make deliveries to the International Space Station, and perhaps eventually carry people. “Stratolaunch will be capable of sending humans to space, although that’s not something we’re focused on at this time,” the company told GeekspeakWire via email.
In the Post report, Stratolaunch CEO Jean Floyd described the concept as “an airplane carrying a plane that’s fully reusable.”
“You don’t throw anything away ever,” Floyd said. “Only fuel.”
The Stratolaunch concept makes it possible to launch from a wide range of locations and put a payload into any orbital inclination — which is a big advantage over fixed launch pads.
Stratolaunch said it had no technical details to share at this time, but based on the information available so far, Black Ice sounds like a re-imagining of the space plane concept that Stratolaunch considered in 2014.
Back then, the company was partnering with California-based Sierra Nevada Corp. on an effort that would have involved sending a version of SNC’s Dream Chaser space plane into orbit, on the front end of an air-launched Orbital ATK rocket.
Dream Chaser looks like a mini-space shuttle, and can theoretically carry people as well as cargo to orbit. The cargo version is being developed for transporting shipments to and from the space station, with service due to start as early as 2020.
Stratolaunch set aside the concept, and the SNC partnership, as it reconsidered its business strategy. But the reports about Black Ice suggest that the idea has continued to percolate.
Allen’s interest in launching reusable space planes goes even farther back — to SpaceShipOne, the precursor to Stratolaunch as well as British billionaire Richard Branson’s SpaceShipTwo effort. Allen was the financial backer for the reusable SpaceShipOne space plane and its WhiteKnight mothership, mentioned earlier, which won the $10 million Ansari X Prize in 2004.
When it comes to Black Ice, there are a couple of big questions to consider. One is technical: How well will the concept work within the Stratolaunch system’s 550,000-pound takeoff weight limit for piggyback payloads? The space shuttle, including its external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters, weighed far more than that at liftoff — but the air-launch system would allow for a dramatic weight reduction.
The other question is financial: Who will pay the bill for developing and operating the space plane? Allen’s net worth is currently estimated at $21.7 billion, but he hasn’t shown much intention of running Stratolaunch like a charity.
In addition to commercial satellite operators, Stratolaunch’s potential customers include NASA and the Department of Defense. Creating a new orbital transit system could conceivably mesh with NASA’s new mandate to shift more of its space operations in low Earth orbit to commercial entities, as well as the Pentagon’s increased interest in ensuring space security.
Stratolaunch even came in for a mention some days at a House subcommittee hearing on NASA’s budget. U.S. Rep. Steve Knight, R-Calif., asked NASA’s acting administrator, Robert Lightfoot, whether he saw the prospect of “a good partnership” with companies like Stratolaunch.
Lightfoot said NASA’s approach to commercial launch services “really allows new entrants to come in.”
“We have a really good on-ramping way for them to demonstrate their capability, and become part of our toolbox to get our missions done,” he said. “So, yeah, absolutely, we see an opportunity for those folks.”
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