Space plane’s mothership makes a splash

When will space tourists fly?
The SpaceShipTwo effort is considered the most advanced and best-funded effort to send tourists on a suborbital ride into space. Other ventures working on suborbital spacecraft include Blue Origin (funded by Amazon.com billionaire Jeff Bezos), XCOR Aerospace (which is headquartered just down the street from Scaled Composites in Mojave) and Oklahoma-based Rocketplane Global.

Most of those ventures are targeting 2010 for the start of commercial service. However, the development timelines have slipped repeatedly and may well do so again. Branson has said as many as 100 test flights would be flown to make sure the SpaceShipTwo system is safe.

A year ago, Scaled Composites' development effort was dealt a blow when a nitrous oxide tank blew up during ground testing, killing three workers. State safety regulators hit the company with a $28,870 fine, which is being appealed.

Bob Morgan, Scaled's design team leader for White Knight Two, told msnbc.com that "we've identified the problem and we've closed the accident investigation."

Morgan said that Scaled has changed its procedures and that rocket engine development was back on track, but he declined to go into detail on Monday. Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic, said Scaled would post its findings online in a week or so.

Extra lift capacity
Whitehorn noted that White Knight Two was built to lift 30 percent more weight than a fully loaded SpaceShipTwo. It could even launch a vehicle capable of putting a single person into orbit, although that is "not a journey I think I'd probably take myself," he told msnbc.com.

That extra capacity means White Knight Two could fly from Mojave, or from Virgin Galactic's eventual base of operations in New Mexico, to other locations in the United States for SpaceShipTwo's launch. It could also make multiple hops and take on spaceflight passengers in other parts of the world. Talks are under way for space operations in Sweden, Scotland and Spain, Whitehorn said.

Eventually, White Knight Two could be used for much more than launching spaceships: Whitehorn suggested that the mothership could carry engines for delivery to aircraft manufacturers, or drop water for firefighting operations, or launch unmanned aerial vehicles.

"The applications of this vehicle ... are going to be many," Whitehorn said.

This report includes information from The Associated Press' Alicia Chang in Mojave and msnbc.com's Alan Boyle in Oshkosh, Wis.

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