Travel

Virgin Galactic Unveils Comfy Cabin for Jet-Setting to the Edge of Space


The inside of Virgin Galactic’s space plane is like a space-age executive jet.

The seats recline to absorb the forces of acceleration toward space. Mood lighting shifts during each phase of the flight. Twelve windows — two for each of the six passengers, who have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars each for a seat — provide an impressive view of Earth and the darkness of space. Sixteen cameras will capture you floating. And the back of the cabin includes a big circular mirror so that you can watch yourself enjoying a few minutes escaping the effects of gravity.

Virgin Galactic will be offering short up-and-down trips to the edge of space, essentially like giant roller coaster rides with better views, in its space plane, SpaceShipTwo.

But how can the company unveil the fancy new interior of its space plane in the middle of a global pandemic when journalists are not able to gather for a fancy media event?

Modern technology provided an imaginative solution. Virgin Galactic sent Oculus virtual reality headsets as loaners to journalists so that they could chat with the designers of the cabin while walking through a computer-generated version of it — an experience of almost being there while being nowhere near there.

For me, that was standing in my cluttered home office on Monday, trying to avoid walking into the door, walls and stacks of boxes, while gazing at Earth above.

“Obviously, you’re on your journey to become an astronaut yourself,” Jeremy Brown, design director at Virgin Galactic, said during our voyage into virtual reality. In this Oculus world, the avatars of other people are mannequin heads with a couple of disembodied gesticulating hands.

If you weren’t sent a VR headset, the company presented a livestream event on YouTube on Tuesday, the first public viewing of the inside of SpaceShipTwo.

Aboard SpaceShipTwo, every seat is, of course, a window seat, with one window to the side and a second above. Unlike commercial jets, the cockpit area where the two pilots sit is not walled off, so passengers can also look out the front windows.

The virtual-reality experience offers a unique perspective not possible in real life. I was able to walk through the wall of SpaceShipTwo to look at the outside of the spacecraft and the full panorama of Earth.

The mirror “is the largest mirror on board a spaceship,” Mr. Brown said, adding, “That’s a really nice memory for you as a customer to have that kind of analog memory of seeing you and your fellow crew members floating around.”



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