Getting your player ready...
NEW YORK — A select group of rich tourists may be blasting into space within a few years in a craft that looks like a cross between a corporate jet and a toy bomber. British billionaire Richard Branson and aerospace designer Burt Rutan unveiled a model Wednesday of SpaceShipTwo, the vehicle they hope will be able to take passengers about 62 miles above Earth for the fun of it, with test flights possibly beginning this year.
The ship is under construction at a hangar in the Mojave Desert. A twin-fuselage airplane, called the White Knight Two, would carry SpaceShipTwo high into the sky. The spacecraft then would separate from the plane and rocket into space, carrying as many as six passengers and two crew members.
The Associated Press
