Virgin Galactic desires you to get up close with SpaceShipTwo rocket motor

Virgin Galactic desires the world to see the rocket motor that brought SpaceShipTwo to area.

Richard Branson’s industrial spaceflight business made history with the craft, called VSS Unity, when it skimmed the edge of area in December.

The rocket motor was contributed to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, the business revealed on Monday, and it’ll be shown in its Future of Spaceflight gallery.

Unfortunately, that gallery does not open up until 2024 so the motor will be shown at the museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, in the meantime. It’s most likely the Smithsonian will collect products from other personal spaceflight business, like Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, in the meantime.

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Virgin space plane skims the edge of space

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“The desire to explore space has been an inspiration since time began and, in recent decades, an incredible catalyst for innovation,” Branson said in a release. 

“I hope our donation will also play a small part in inspiring the thousands of visitors as they pass through the new gallery in years to come.”

Virgin Galactic ultimately plans to take up space tourists, with Branson saying last summer he intends to be one of the first passengers. We also know that they’ll be wearing Under Armor gear.

The test flight in December put Virgin Galactic a step ahead in the private space tourism race. SpaceX has ambitious plans to carry passengers around the moon and Blue Origin is conducting rocket tests, but both rival companies have yet to carry humans into space.

First published Feb. 11, 2019, 8:51 a.m. PT.
Update, 12:48 p.m. PT: Adds more background information.