how do you feel about going to space and no i don't mean studying astrophysics in
the womb then dedicating 50 years of your life to rocket propulsion then hoping you're the 0.0001%
of applicants who get accepted by nasa i mean what if you could go on your computer and book a ticket
then go to space? Well that's exactly what a company by the name of virgin galactic is
proposing commercialized space flight for the average person well that is the average person
with around $250 000 lying around for, science of course. now while this all may sound like a
science fiction fantasy it's actually not as far off as you think because over the past
decade virgin galactic has already been working on innovative aircraft and spacecraft to get us there
and have already completed multiple successful test flights to space so what exactly does a
spacecraft look like and how is it designed and how does it work and what does a flight to
space actually feel like well we're gonna unpack all of that in this video so let's get started
thanks to brilliant for sponsoring this video if you want both a fun and interactive way to brush
up on your math and physics skills like i did for this video then check out the link in the
description virgin galactic was founded back in 2004 by two pretty legendary figures in aviation
Burt Rutan and Richard Branson of course Burt Rutan is a brilliant aircraft designer
specializing in building light efficient and often strange looking aircraft
he designed the Rutan voyager back in the 80s becoming the very first plane to circumnavigate
the globe without stopping or refueling he went on to found scaled composites a company specializing
in building prototype airplanes out of composite materials as opposed to metal and you know what
a history of Burt Rutan's life could be a long video in and of itself but all you need to know
is the man is great at designing planes on the other hand richard branson is no rookie either
because back in the 70s he founded the virgin group which today encompasses over 400 companies
in various different fields including of course the very famous virgin atlantic airline so in
2004 with rutan's aircraft knowledge and with branson's business experience the duo teamed up to
create virgin galactic the very first commercial space flight company well that was the hope anyway
the idea is that one day the average consumer can just hop into a spacecraft fly up into space for
a little bit then come back to earth in just a matter of hours just like how today we pay
for rides at amusement parks just at a very very large scale and at a hefty price tag too
but we'll get into that later on the company says its eventual goal is to establish earth orbiting
hotels and science labs and eventually full space exploration but let's come back to earth for a
little bit because how are they actually going to accomplish this because right now the company
is barely past making the first step and what is that first step well making some flying machines
for the purpose of getting humans to space at least temporarily virgin galactic has designed
a nifty little two craft system it consists of a mother ship aircraft called white knight 2 that
carries the actual spacecraft called spaceship 2 up to an altitude of about 50 000 feet to give
it a little boost spaceship 2 then separates from the mothership and using the propellant it carries
completes that journey to the edge of the earth's atmosphere then as gravity pulls spaceship 2 back
to earth it re-enters the atmosphere then serves as a glider to land on its own back at the base
so first let's dive a little deeper into the engineering of the mother ship the white knight 2.
the white knight 2 is a 4 engine dual fuselage jet aircraft that flew initially back in 2010.
it was actually intended to be a multi-purpose aircraft and not just the mothership because
with a service ceiling of around 70 000 feet the engineers replicated the interior of spaceship 2
on one of the two fuselages so that it could serve as a training aircraft for tourists to
practice on before the real fight and the other fuselage well allegedly it's
going to be used as an economy class trip to bring passengers to the stratosphere which is
basically space i mean close enough well at least in this case economy class is going to get a
perk that first class will never get and that is beverage service the white knight 2 also allegedly
has a pretty impressive turnaround time it's able to complete four flights daily during both day and
night with its very advanced avionics system and just as important is the second part of the system
the part that will actually get you into space and it's called spaceship two spaceship two is a
reusable winged spacecraft that can carry 8 people including 2 pilots its fuselage is 3.7 meters long
and 2.3 meters in diameter like the interior of a slightly oversized car the spaceship has a single
hybrid engine and what that means is that it has both a solid motor which is more simple with less
moving parts and also a liquid motor with better control this engine very creatively named rocket
motor 2 produces around 60 000 pound force of thrust around 50 more than an engine on the f35
one of the many groundbreaking aspects of space shuttle 2 is its feathered re-entry system where
it can rotate its wing backwards and actually create a shuttlecock effect on re-entry this
enables the aircraft to achieve more aerodynamic drag to slow down while lowering the thermal loads
on re-entry now it's able to accomplish this because of its relatively low re-entry speed
this is especially in comparison to other spacecraft that re-enter at much higher
orbital speeds like the space shuttle which need to rely on heat shields on re-entry
the aircraft is also allegedly so safe that it can re-enter the atmosphere at any angle and it will
self-correct to land safely even in the event of a catastrophic failure now again this is allegedly
following re-entry the spacecraft essentially acts as a glider and lands back to earth on its own
and during landing it can even change its shape to adjust its stability and also rate of descent by
twisting a little bit of the wings and the tail booms and if you're curious about what happened
to white knight 1 and spaceship 1 well they were much smaller versions with lower payload
capacities that eventually acted as a prototype for building the later models that we see today
so okay we get how the hardware systems work but what would i actually experience as a private
astronaut on spaceship 2 well before that actually you got to get in line after the 8 000 people
who've already signed up for a flight and not only that it will cost you a pretty penny too virgin
galactic has raised the price per ticket from two hundred thousand dollars to two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars and allegedly at this point some travelers were even asked to take a six to eight g
centrifuge test to qualify and when the logistics are all taken care of you'll be
ready to enroll in a three-day training course at the virgin galactic spaceport in new mexico
this is where you'll receive guidance from the senior astronauts on well how to be an astronaut
and about the systems on board you'll also receive from medical consultants a nutrition and fitness
program but can i just take a second to say that trying to help people get fit enough to go to
space in three days is like me thinking i'll get bikini ready by running through the airport on my
way to cancun it's not gonna happen but once you're past all the paperwork and the checks
you're finally ready to fly so you'll be strapped into spaceship two attached to white knight two
and soon you'll be reaching an altitude of 50 000 feet and minutes later you're released
from the mothership and you enter into a glide but no need to panic because just a
few seconds later the rocket motor will fire entering the spacecraft into a vertical climb
soon reaching a top speed of mach 3.5 and during this acceleration you'll experience around 3.5
g's after just 70 seconds from the initial ejection the engines would be shut off and the
spacecraft continues to climb using its remaining momentum at this point very close to peak altitude
you start to experience weightlessness in microgravity for around six minutes
this usually happens right above what is called the karma line a distance of a 100 kilometers or
330 000 feet above sea level typically considered to be the boundary between earth and space
then as gravity starts pulling the spacecraft back to earth the crew actually needs to
change the wing configuration to be feathered for re-entry and after re-entry at around 50 000 feet
the wings are put back into their normal position so that the plane can be a glider to land back at
the spaceport in just around 25 minutes and this entire process took around two and a half hours
now you may have noticed that throughout this video there weren't a lot of mentions of any dates
and that's because all of this is still undergoing testing as we speak and it's aimed to be released
sometime in the future and as it's the norm in aviation deadlines have been getting pushed back
and back and back some more today in 2020 there has already been multiple successful space test
flights that were conducted but there still doesn't seem to be any end in sight just yet
and a major roadblock for the schedule was a tragic accident that occurred back in october of
2014 when during a test flight spaceship 2 broke apart in midair during the crash unfortunately
the co-pilot was killed and the pilot was seriously injured after investigations the ntsb
cited inadequate design safeguards poor pilot training lack of rigorous faa oversight and a
potentially anxious co-pilot without recent flight experience as important factors in this 2014 crash
investigators later concluded that the source of the crash was due to the co-pilots prematurely
unlocking a movable portion of the teal section as the aircraft was breaking the sound barrier
however this crash actually exposed a much broader failure of the design and that was that this
single mistake by the co-pilot should have been prevented by some fail-safe system but instead
they rely too heavily on the correct actions of the pilot a single point of human failure
following the accident virgin galactic released that they would be fitting the new spaceship twos
with a device that would prevent the locking and unlocking of the feather during critical flight
phases and also updated the pilot checklist accordingly but to me this kind of feels like
a retroactive step especially since they didn't mention if the entire spacecraft has been modified
to eliminate any single point human failures but i really hope that's the case and even aside
from testing there are a lot of unknowns here for example what does it mean to certify and regulate
a spacecraft and how would we enforce security measures for these private astronauts well these
are the answers that we need to eventually answer as they come up and aside from commercial space
tourism as if that wasn't enough virgin galactic has also recently announced the development of a
new orbital launch vehicle for small payloads this rocket named launcher 1 will aim to take packages
of around 200 kilograms into orbit it's stepping into the arena of the likes of spacex and united
launch alliance launcher 1 was originally designed to be deployed from white knight 2 as well
but as the payloads grew heavier and heavier the duo would no longer be able to reach its
original altitude so instead a boeing 747 is being considered for this launch role and this is still
an ongoing project today now i understand some of these concepts sound a little intimidating it is
literally rocket science in fact whenever i hear that phrase my brain just gets triggered a little
bit but a great resource i've been using to make that happen just a little bit less is brilliant
it's an interactive learning platform for topics in math science and engineering
and while researching this video i actually found their course on gravitational physics
it was a great refresher on the basics i really enjoyed how engaging their content was i wasn't
just given formulas on paper but interesting examples of how they apply in real life too
and also quizzes to make sure i'm absorbing the material and if you're interested in the topic of
space travel i'd highly recommend their astronomy course as well to learn more about brilliance go
to brilliant.org forward slash jennymon you can try it out completely free and if you like what
you see they're kindly offering a 20 discount of their annual plan for our viewers as well
so guys there you have it a little exploration into the space flight of virgin galactic and
how they work and what are your thoughts on flying into space would you sign up for one i know for me
the idea sounds really intriguing but i wouldn't want to be within the first thousand people to go
up into space but let me know what your thoughts are in the comments down below and as always if
you enjoy this video please remember to give it a thumbs up it really helps out the channel
and remember to subscribe for more content and as always i will see you guys next week
you