In Brief

This Isn't Sci-Fi: Amazing Photo of SpaceShipTwo and Moon Is REAL

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SpaceShipTwo and Moon Test Flight
SpaceShipTwo shoots the moon during April 3 test flight at Mojave Air and Space Port. (Image credit: Bill Deaver/Deaver-Wiggins and Associates)

When you write about space exploration every day for more than a decade, you see a lot amazing photos of stars, galaxies, the Earth and spacecraft. But every now and then one image comes in that dares you to look away, and an amazing image of SpaceShipTwo and the moon snapped by photographer Bill Deaver last week is just that: It looks like science fiction. But this is real.

Deaver took the amazing photo on April 3, when Virgin Galactic's first SpaceShipTwo passenger space plane passed its 24th drop test with flying colors over Mojave, Calif. After 23 successful unpowered glide tests, you might think that if you've seen one, you've likely seen them all, and that is certainly what crossed my mind last week when I learned of the test. Then our story on Virgin Galactic's latest SpaceShipTwo milestone came in from our Space Insider columnist Leonard David and my jaw met the floor. Tucked in the package was Deaver's amazing shot.

"I used a Nikon D90 and Tamron 18-250 lens handheld - nothing fancy. I've been trying to get that shot for some time and this morning the 'stars' lined up just right!" Deaver told David. He also shared some comments about what watching this latest test flight was like: "The flight followed the usual pattern with the drop and glide preceded by a fuel dump from the spaceship. The weather was perfect and the wind was blowing out of the east, which meant that when the spaceship slid to a stop on its landing gear and wooden nose skid, the handful of spectators got a whiff of burnt wood!" Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo is expected to begin powered flight tests sometime this year using its hybrid rocket engine. The spacecraft is designed to fly two pilots and six passengers on suborbital spaceflights for $200,000 per passenger ticket.  SpaceShipTwo and its carrier aircraft WhiteKnightTwo were developed by the Mojave-based company Scaled Composites.

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Tariq Malik
Tariq Malik
Editor-in-Chief

Tariq is the Editor-in-Chief of Space.com and joined the team in 2001, first as an intern and staff writer, and later as an editor. He covers human spaceflight, exploration and space science, as well as skywatching and entertainment. He became Space.com's Managing Editor in 2009 and Editor-in-Chief in 2019. Before joining Space.com, Tariq was a staff reporter for The Los Angeles Times covering education and city beats in La Habra, Fullerton and Huntington Beach. In October 2022, Tariq received the Harry Kolcum Award for excellence in space reporting from the National Space Club Florida Committee. He is also an Eagle Scout (yes, he has the Space Exploration merit badge) and went to Space Camp four times as a kid and a fifth time as an adult. He has journalism degrees from the University of Southern California and New York University. You can find Tariq at Space.com and as the co-host to the This Week In Space podcast with space historian Rod Pyle on the TWiT network. To see his latest project, you can follow Tariq on Twitter @tariqjmalik.