Virgin Galactic is close enough to launching people into space that it has unveiled the passenger cabin of SpaceShipTwo, offering the clearest image yet of how it will feel to ride into space aboard its signature rocket-powered vehicle.
Richard Branson founded the company in 2004 after the Ansari XPrize proved a reusable piloted rocket ship could launch repeat flights beyond the edge of space — an unofficial boundary about 62 miles (100 kilometers) above Earth. The airline mogul originally hoped to start flying paying passengers with SpaceShipTwo as soon as 2009, but developing the system proved difficult, financially costly, and, on a 2014 experimental flight, even deadly.
But with 16 years of effort behind the now-publicly traded company, including two successful suborbital spaceflights and a new CEO to usher in its next era, Virgin Galactic intends to make good on the $200,000 to $250,000 tickets it has sold to 600 people.
The goal is to launch up to six paying space tourists or scientific researchers per flight from Spaceport America in New Mexico, provide a few minutes of weightlessness, stunning views of Earth from space, and a safe runway landing. To that end, the company is wrapping up a test-flight program to work through a 29-item list of requirements with the Federal Aviation Administration, positioning it to become the first commercially licensed suborbital launch provider.
On Tuesday, Virgin Galactic revealed the inner workings of its spaceships in a live virtual event on YouTube.
Before that event, however, the company sent Business Insider a sneak-peek tour of the spaceship and flight experience inside a box: with a loaned set of Oculus Quest virtual-reality goggles.
Here's what it's going to be like inside SpaceShipTwo, according to the VR experience.