Virgin Galactic Launches First Commercial Flight to Space
A team of Italian researchers reached the edge of space Thursday morning, flying aboard Virgin Galactic’s rocket-powered plane as the company prepares for monthly commercial flights.
The flight launched from Spaceport America in the New Mexico desert, with two Italian Air Force officers and an engineer with the National Research Council of Italy focusing on a series of microgravity experiments during their few minutes of weightless.
One wore a special suit that measured biometric data and physiological responses while another conducted tests using sensors to track heart rate, brain function and other metrics while in microgravity. The third studied how certain liquids and solids mix in that very weak gravity.
Virgin Galactic livestreamed the flight on its website, showing the moment when the ship released from its carrier plane and the rocket was ignited. The entire trip took about 90 minutes, with the plane's touchdown on the runway prompting cheers and claps by Virgin Galactic staff.
With the ship’s copilots, it marked the most Italians in space at the same time. Col. Walter Villadei, a space engineer with the Italian Air Force, celebrated by unfolding an Italian flag while weightless.
Next up for Virgin Galactic will be the first of hundreds of ticket holders, many who have been waiting years for their chance at weightlessness and to see the curvature of the Earth. Those commercial flights are expected to begin in August and will be scheduled monthly, the space tourism company said.
Virgin Galactic has been working for years to send paying passengers on short space trips and in 2021 finally won the federal government’s approval. The company completed its final test fight in May.
The Italian research flight was initially scheduled for the fall of 2021 but Virgin Galactic at the time said it was forced to push back its timeline due to a potential defect in a component used in its flight control system. Then the company spent months upgrading its rocket ship before resuming testing in early 2023.
After reaching an altitude of nearly 50,000 feet (15,000 meters), Virgin Galactic’s space plane is released from a carrier aircraft and drops for a moment before igniting its rocket motor. The rocket shuts off once it reaches space, leaving passengers weight before the ship then glides back to the runway at Spaceport America.
Virgin Galactic has sold about 800 tickets over the past decade, with the initial batch going for $200,000 each. Tickets now cost $450,000 per person.
The company said early fliers have already received their seat assignments.
The two-week COP26 climate conference has now ended with leaders reaching a deal, but so far the deal is getting mixed reviews from climate experts across the globe. Chloe Demrovsky, president and CEO of Disaster Recovery Institute International, explains that while the agreement is a step forward in some ways, the world still has much more to work on in order to keep warming to below 2 degrees Celsius.
Jill and Carlo cover the latest with the infrastructure bill, the growing state rebellion over boosters, Trump's dereliction of duty on the pandemic, Taylor Swift's reign of cultural domination and more.
Aurora Cannabis CEO Miguel Martin joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss the company's latest earnings results, how it will achieve positive EBITDA by 2023, and the state of the cannabis industry amid potential U.S. federal legalization.
Moderna is defending its COVID-19 vaccine after a study found an increase in reports of myocarditis, which is an inflammation of the heart, in males ages 12 to 29 — about 13.3 cases in every 100,000 subjects. The pharmaceutical giant said the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risk of the possible negative side effect.
The parent company of North Face, Vans and Supreme, VF Corp, released its fourth annual "Made for Change" sustainability and responsibility report. It details the company's ongoing efforts to tackle social and climate related issues. This comes as climate experts continue to warn about the dangers of fast fashion and its impact on global CO2 emissions. Sean Cady, Vice President of Global Sustainability, Responsibility and Trade at VF Corporation, joins Cheddar News to discuss.
A jam-packed Freitag pod with Carlo and Baker: new Covid hotspots, Kyle Rittenhouse trial, Belarus making trouble for Europe, red-hot housing market, and how to manage a PR crisis the right way.
As the UN climate conference is set to wrap this week, we take a look at pledges that world leaders have signed onto so far and the most important developments to come out of COP26. Sandeep Pai, Senior Research Lead at the Just Transition Initiative, joins Cheddar Climate to discuss the most important global initiatives and biggest pledges made by global leaders, and whether or not they can truly make an impact if two of the world's biggest economies, China and Russia, did not attend and are not fully committed to major climate initiatives.
A group of health experts from around the world is issuing a dire warning about the climate crisis, saying that climate change is the greatest global health threat facing the world this century and is set to become the 'defining narrative of human health.' The Lancet medical journal stated that warning in its annual report, along with a policy brief for the United States detailing actions the country can take to stop millions of unnecessary deaths. Director of Climate for Health at EcoAmerica Rebecca Rehr joined Cheddar Climate to discuss.
The COP26 summit in Scotland is in its final days, and the U.N. has just released a draft of an agreement for more than 200 world leaders to sign on Friday. The draft urges nations to set more aggressive goals in cutting emissions, while also calling for coal to be phased out. Chloe Demrovsky, President and CEO of Disaster Recovery Institute International, joins Cheddar News to discuss this agreement.
SpaceX and NASA have collaborated on another successful launch sending four astronauts to the international space station. The international crew will stay in orbit aboard the ISS for six months.
