VSS Unity - Welcome to Space !
This is the first time since the US retired the Space Shuttle in 2011 that humans have taken off from American soil and gone into space. Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic rocketed two test pilots beyond Earth's boundaries and brought them back safely. The two pilots Mark “Forger” Stucky and Frederick “CJ” Sturckow started their journey at the Mojave Air and Space Port in the Californian desert, slung under the belly of Virgin's twin-hulled, carbon fiber launch vehicle, the VMS Eve. Once they were 13,000 m / 43,000 feet up, Eve released Unity, and the Unity pilots powered its rockets for 60 seconds—longer than ever before—to shoot upwards at Mach 2.9, nearly three times the speed of sound. VSS Unity climbed to an altitude of 82 km / 51.4 miles, that's high enough to see the star-spotted blackness of space, and get a pretty spectacular view of the Earth.
© Foto: Virgin Galactic