I don't know much about this project at all and that will be illustrated well with my following question. What are we talking about as far as going into space? This craft resembles a passenger plane more than a rocket.
Quick explanation of orbital vs suborbital spaceflight
Apogee between 50mi and 100km (which are two "lines" of where "space" begins.)
On top of that, a seat will cost half a million dollars.
SpaceX and maybe Blue Origin can do that, but Virgin would need a different aircraft.
Space X and Blue Origin are design for space exploration
> What are we talking about as far as going into space? This craft resembles a passenger plane more than a rocket.
Whatever plans they may have for international flights, they seem unrelated to the craft we saw today - the proposed design in the article you linked is for a new "conventional" supersonic plane, not going to orbit and back à la Starship with SpaceShipTwo.
Also, I thought Virgin Galactic was founded specifically with space tourism in mind, not transportation?
What space x proposed with their point to point listing cities such a Zürich Switzerland is insane. If you launch in the middle of Lake Zürich you will blow out every window in the city and probably permanently deathen part of the population. Zürich is a tiny city. Thinking there would be multiple flights like this per day when we can't eve deal with the plane noise is insane.
https://www.virgingalactic.com/articles/virgin-galactic-unve...