Virgin Galactic's aerial launcher, WhiteKnightTwo, with a passenger rocket launching from its the midsection. Scroll down for a video of the flight simulation.
Credit: Virgin Galactic
Taking a spin
Next comes the fun part: six rides in the centrifuge. The first four flight simulations break the G forces up into their components, so that passengers can identify the physical sensation of the force in both the x and z directions. These first rides give the passengers 50 per cent and then 100 per cent of the Gx and Gz forces felt on a real flight.
During these flights, passengers are able to test out the techniques for counteracting Gx and Gz forces separately.
In the final two spins, the forces are combined just like in the real flight for a full simulation, and trainees try out combining the techniques from the program. The only difference between these simulations and the actual SpaceShipTwo flight is the weightlessness felt during the 15-minute sub-orbital stop above the Earth during the real flight, which is shortened to a mere few seconds at 0.4G in the centrifuge.
Lucky for da Silva, he passed the STS-400 training with flying colours, as well as his mandatory physical and heart stress tests, and is now officially approved to fly on SpaceShipTwo, which may happen as early as next year.
When he does, he and Finkel will likely be the first Australian tourists in space. And da Silva hopes to be the first science journalist, and the first magazine editor. And taking up a copy of Cosmos with him, will make it the first science magazine in space.
Will he be writing about it? “You’d better believe it,” he grins.
Brooke Borel is former Cosmos intern and now regular correspondent based in New York City, USA.
