<p><strong>December 7, 2009--</strong>Aspiring space tourists got a first look at their future ride late Monday, when <a href="http://www.virgingalactic.com/">Virgin Galactic</a> unveiled the first of its long-awaited <em>SpaceShipTwo</em> planes--pictured in a hangar at the <a href="http://www.mojaveairport.com/">Mojave Air and Space Port</a> in <a href="http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/places/states/state_california.html">California</a> Monday with wings folded upward, suspended from the middle of its twin-fuselage launch vehicle.</p><p>The craft, dubbed the V.S.S. <em>Enterprise,</em> is intended to provide space tourists with two-and-a-half-hour flights into suborbital space, where they'll experience weightlessness and see the curvature of the Earth. (<a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/12/091208-virgin-galactic-spaceship-enterprise-branson.html">Read full story.</a>)</p>

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo

December 7, 2009--Aspiring space tourists got a first look at their future ride late Monday, when Virgin Galactic unveiled the first of its long-awaited SpaceShipTwo planes--pictured in a hangar at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California Monday with wings folded upward, suspended from the middle of its twin-fuselage launch vehicle.

The craft, dubbed the V.S.S. Enterprise, is intended to provide space tourists with two-and-a-half-hour flights into suborbital space, where they'll experience weightlessness and see the curvature of the Earth. (Read full story.)

Photograph courtesy Mark Greenberg, Virgin Galactic

Space: Virgin Galactic Debut and More

See the world's first commercial spaceship, the first direct picture of a planet orbiting a sunlike star, the deepest known image of the universe, and more in our selection of the week's best space pictures.

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