The Malaysian Insider :: Features

Singapore family books US$1m Virgin space flight

Posted: 14 Nov 2011 06:40 AM PST

SINGAPORE, Nov 14 — A Singaporean businessman, his wife and two children have paid US$1 million (RM3.13 million) to become the first Asian family to fly together on space-tourism airline Virgin Galactic, the company announced today.

"I had lunch yesterday with a guy who got in touch with us in Singapore, and over lunch he signed his contract for not just a seat, but for a whole flight," Virgin Galactic commercial director Stephen Attenborough said.

Speaking at an international media and marketing conference in Singapore, Attenborough said the customer handed over a cheque for US$1 million and asked to remain anonymous because "apparently he hasn't told his wife yet."

The Singaporean family will be the first Asian family to fly together on space-tourism airline Virgin Galactic. — AFP/Relaxnews pic

"So he is going to become, or he and his family will become, the first family from Asia to become astronauts together," Attenborough said.

The US-based firm, part of British tycoon Richard Branson's Virgin conglomerate, has sold bookings since 2005 at US$200,000 per seat even though it has not yet set a firm timetable for space flights to be launched from New Mexico.

Branson announced in late 2004 that the firm would launch the world's first space tourism flights in two to three years but after delays, the target has now been moved to 2013.

Attenborough told AFP in an interview that the Singaporean businessman chartered one exclusive flight for his family on the six-seat aircraft SpaceShipTwo.

The SpaceshipTwo, with two pilots, is designed to be launched by a transport plane called White KnightTwo and will be guided by a rocket motor before gliding back to Earth.

"They should be flying in the first year of commercial operations. They'll be within the first thousand human beings to have ever gone to space, or they should be," Attenborough said.

He said nine out of nearly 500 tickets sold worldwide had been bought by customers in Singapore, which has one of Asia's highest concentrations of millionaires.

Families from other countries such as Canada, the United States and Britain have also bought tickets, Attenborough said.

"About 35 to 40 per cent are from the United States, 15 per cent from the UK ... I think there are 46 countries now represented in total and for many of those countries, the people will be the first astronaut for that country," he said.

Customers from the Asia-Pacific region now account for "approximately 15 per cent" of ticket sales despite a ban on Virgin Galactic selling seats in China, the region's biggest economy.

"The space vehicle is US technology and they fall under a set of regulations in the US which means that there are some countries where at the moment we're not permitted to sell tickets," he explained.

"I think Asia is a huge opportunity for us, absolutely. Just the interest we've had from Singapore, which is a fairly small part of Asia, I've been extremely impressed," he said.

"We have seen an increasing amount of interest from this part of the world and hopefully that will translate into lots of future astronauts."

In anticipation of burgeoning future demand for space tourism, Attenborough said Virgin Galactic had already ordered more spacecraft.

Attenborough said the company expected to take three years to recoup its investments, which he estimated at US$300 million to US$400 million, with one flight a week when commercial operations begin.

If everything goes smoothly, "we would hope to be flying people to space by 2013," he said. — AFP/Relaxnews

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Chinese executioner says job not ‘complicated’

Posted: 14 Nov 2011 06:14 AM PST

BEIJING, Nov 14 — Hu Xiao says his job as one of China's executioners is usually not very complicated, except for the time when a prisoner he was about to kill stood up and ran towards his loaded rifle.

The rare glimpse into the ranks of China's executioners appeared in the Beijing Evening News newspaper today.

Hu, a veteran judicial police officer, described the routine of shooting dead prisoners convicted of murder and other capital crimes in China, which rights groups say carries out more judicial killings each year than anywhere else in the world.

"In fact, it's not as complicated as outsiders think. We all use rifles, stand about four metres from the condemned prisoner with a barrel one metre-long, take aim, press the trigger, and that's that," Hu told the newspaper.

Most prisoners taken for execution are so terrified they collapse on the ground and cannot stand, Hu said. The exception was an ex-soldier convicted of homicide, he said.

"At the time of execution, the criminals kneel on the ground, but this former soldier actually stood up and ran forward. The result was a moving target that was taken down," said Hu, himself a former soldier who has worked as a police officer for 19 years.

"These people all deserved what they got for their crimes."

China does not publish statistics of the number of people it executes. But human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, have said it executes more prisoners than any other country — thousands in 2010, according to Amnesty.

The United States executed 46 people, nearly all by lethal injections, in 2010, said Amnesty.

China has been moving towards using more lethal injections, which are less prone to mishaps than guns, but Hu spoke only of his routine of shooting convicted prisoners.

When he first took the job of judicial police officer, Hu told the newspaper, older officers made him watch two executions and inspect the fresh corpses. Then it was time for Hu to do it himself, and the newspaper said he was not nervous.

"Yet the second time he was carrying out the task he did become nervous. Not because he was afraid, but out of fear of not shooting straight and becoming a laughing stock among his colleagues," said the report.

Younger police officers take longer to become used to executions, said Hu.

"For the older judicial police, carrying out executions became a routine task long ago," said the report. — Reuters

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Kredit: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com

Isnin, 14 November 2011

The Malaysian Insider :: Features

The Malaysian Insider :: Features

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