When Paul Allen and Burt (Man's SpaceShipOne snagged the $10 million Ansari X Prize in the fall ot 2004 by flying to suborbital space twice within a week, many reasonably assumed that more such [aunts - with paying passengers on board - would soon follow. Few would have imagined that eight years would fly by without another flight. But that's what has happened. Virgin Galactic, the suborbital spaceflight industry's well-financed frontrunner, says it is on track to begin powered test flights of the six-passenger SpaceShipT-wo by year's end with ticketed flights to follow in 2013.
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