Dec 22, 2008 9:29 AM

SpaceShipTwo Mothership Makes First Test Flight

Most of us can hardly afford plane tickets right now, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be saving up for our first spaceship ride.

WhiteKnightTwo, the carrier ship for the commercial space plane SpaceShipTwo, made its first test flight Sunday. The distinctive double plane flew from Mojave Air and Space Port in California for about an hour, taking off around 8:15 a.m. PST. The 79-foot-long behemoth is powered by four Pratt and Whitney PW308A turbofan engines. The spaceship is a joint project of the Scaled Composites company and Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.

"The maiden flight went perfectly," Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic, told Wired.com. "With these aircraft, nothing is ever a foregone conclusion. It’s not like pulling another AirBus off the line and putting it into the air. This was a big moment. I think it was a big milestone for the whole industry."

Until recently, only government-trai ned astronauts could experience the weightlessness and wonder of space flight. But now, spurred by the $10-million Ansari X Prize, won by SpaceShipTwo’s predecessor, a small industry is developing to make space tourism accessible to the common millionaire.

While craft like the SpaceShipTwo technically reach space by crossing the rather-arbitrar y Karman Line, passengers don’t enter orbit around Earth. You get what you pay for: Seats on the new craft are only supposed to run about $200,000, while a trip to the International Space Station retails for more than $20 million.

WhiteKnightTwo is a unique vehicle; it’s the first aircraft made from 100 percent carbon composite materials. Yesterday two pilots guided the plane on a flight to 16,000 feet. Eventually, the vehicle must go much higher. It is designed to launch SpaceShipTwo in mid-air at about 48,000 feet.

SpaceShipTwo will carry two pilots and six passengers. The spaceship is twice as big as its predecessor, SpaceShipOne, the first privately-funded suborbital spaceplane, which now hangs in the National Air Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Whitehorn said he expects the first test flight of ShaceShipTwo in six or seven months, and Virgin and Scaled Composites hope to begin carrying space travelers before the end of 2010.