V
vt_hokie
Guest
Check out the link at nasawatch.com:<br /><br />"Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites to develop orbital version of tourist spacecraft Orbital vehicle SpaceShipThree (SS3) will be developed by space tourism company Virgin Galactic and Mojave-based SpaceShipTwo (SS2)-developer Scaled Composites, if the planned SS2 suborbitalservice is successful, says Virgin Galactic president Will White horn."<br /><br /><br />My question is, will this vehicle have anything in common with SpaceShipTwo? We're talking about an immensely more complex task in going all the way to orbit. There are so many things that would be totally different - the aerodynamic requirements through a wider range of conditions, the thermal protection requirements, life support, attitude control above the atmosphere (the suborbital craft do have RCS, I realize, but I imagine a more robust system would be needed), and so on. <br />