Virgin Galactic is offering tickets aboard SpaceShipTwo spaceliners for an initial price of about $200,000, though Branson said the cost is expected to drop after the first five years of operations.
The space tourism firm plans to eventual launch flights out of a terminal at New Mexico's Spaceport America, with additional trips through the aurora borealis to be staged from Kiruna, Sweden.
Rutan, whose Mojave, Calif.-based Scaled has completed 60 percent of the first SpaceShipTwo, said his firm is building at least five of the suborbital vehicles — and two WhiteKnightTwo carriers — for Virgin Galactic.
"This is not a small program by any stretch of the imagination," said Rutan, adding that his firm hopes to build at least 40 SpaceShipTwos and 15 carrier craft over the next 12 years. Each spacecraft is designed to fly twice a day, with the WhiteKnightTwo carriers capable of up to four daily launches, Rutan said.
Over 12 years, more than 100,000 people could fly to suborbital space aboard the vehicles, he added.
NASA will never get large numbers of people into space or establish a permanent human presence there. But enterprising entrepreneurs just might.


2 comments:
Branson is quite the odd bird with a lot of vision.
Looking at history, it seems those two qualities often go hand in hand! What's that old saw about fine lines between genius and insanity? :)
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