Virgin Galactic & Germany's First Woman In Space

Early this morning, at California's Mojave Air and Space Port, Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo "Enterprise" completed its second rocket-powered test flight, achieving its fastest hypersonic speed, a record altitude and fully flexing its unique feathering re-entry design.

During the 90-minute flight and landing maneuver, the WhiteKnightTwo carrier plane lifted SS2 to an altitude of 46,000 feet (14,000 m). Upon release, the two pilots on board SS2 rode a 20-second fiery burn as SS2 ascended to 69,000 feet (21,000 m), reaching a maximum speed of Mach 1.4. 

Congratulations to Richard Branson and the Virgin Galactic Team on a successful test flight!

Video credit: Virgin Galactic

Virgin Galactic aims to start taking passengers to the edge of space in 2014. The company has sold tickets for these space tourist flights for years. Many of the ticket holders are celebrities who made national and international news for buying tickets that cost $200,000. But not all ticket holders are celebrities. Some just want to go to space. One of them is Sonja Rohde, who aims to become the first German woman in space. She is from Hagen / Nordrhein-Westfalen.

Photo credit: Sonja Rohde

Find out more about Sonja Rohde (English / German)

For my German-speaking readers, you can also read about Sonja Rohde as part of my interview with a German newspaper in 2011. Scroll down to the first newspaper page, middle column, lower half.

Tonight's Game: Space Mega Millions

Ok, fine, I admit it. I caved in to the social pressure and bought a lottery ticket today. I thought about what I would do with a metric flock ton of money (other than the obvious). For me, there's only one thing to do with that kind of money. Follow my passion and do whatever I can to advance space tourism, commerce and access to space by anyone. 

With that in mind, I picked the following numbers:

05 - For the Saturn V and my hero Wernher von Braun, whose rockets enabled humanity to achieve jaw-dropping escape velocity and get to the moon.

11 - For Apollo 11. An unprecedented achievement that I watched as a small child on an old black and white TV and just like that, a space geek for life was born. 

30 - For 30 years of Space Shuttle flights that awed, inspired and kept me looking to the stars.

35 - For STS-135 Atlantis, the last shuttle flight and one I saw in person. Never underestimate the power of 20% go for launch (a special good luck charm mention here goes to @phiden and @charmcitygavin.)

51 - For STS-51L Challenger and in memory of the astronauts who lost their lives in the January 1986 shuttle disaster. Also a reminder that space travel is a risky business.

13 - As the Mega Number because I just have to pay homage to an Apollo crew that patched up their faulty capsule with a sock and duct tape to plummet safely back to Earth. Talk about luck.

Will my Space Numbers be the lucky ones tonight? 

We will find out in about an hour.