Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic has unveiled a new tourist spaceship

Baku. 20 February. REPORT.AZ/ Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic has unveiled a new commercial human spaceflight vehicle to take tourists into space.

Report informs citing the foreign media, the new SpaceShipTwo (SS2), VSS Unity, named by Professor Stephen Hawking, made its debut at the Mojave Air & Space Port in Caifornia today by Virgin Galactic, the world’s first commercial spaceline.

The billionaire and business magnate behind Virgin Group is an advocate for civilian space travel saying today that: “Together, we can make space accessible in a way that has only been dreamt of before now, and by doing so can bring positive change to life on Earth.”

The release of the new SpaceShipTwo takes place 16 months after the fatal crash of the original SpaceShipTwo, VSS Enterprise, in 2014 which suffered a breakup during its test flight over the Mojave Desert killing co-pilot, Michael Alsbury, and leaving pilot Peter Siebold seriously injured.

Virgin Galactic says the new ship will maintain the “same basic design” to its sister ship but with a “few key improvements”.

The reports say that the biggest difference will be the inclusion of a pin which will prevent pilots from unlocking the rotating tail section of the aircraft before descent which was blamed for the accident on the original ship.

“We seek to open space to people from all walks of life, and today’s milestone is big step toward that goal,” said Virgin Galactic CEO George T. Whitesides.

“Outer space is the province of all humanity, and we think it is about time that all of humanity has a chance to explore it: not just pilots but also painters, not just engineers but also everyday explorers,”

The SpaceShipTwo experience will cost US $250,000.