US$450,000 Gets You A Seat Onboard Virgin Galactic To Space

Dreams of going to space has turn to reality as billionaire Richard Branson offers space flight at a starting price of US$450,000 a seat.

This comes after Branson successfully reached the edge of space on board his Virgin Galactic rocket plane last month.

He flew high above New Mexico in the US in the vehicle that his company has been developing for 17 years.

The trip was, he said, the “experience of a lifetime”. He returned safely to Earth just over an hour after leaving the ground.

The trip also makes him the first of the new space tourism pioneers to try out their own vehicles, beating Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and SpaceX’s Elon Musk.

The height reached by Branson in the rocket plane, known as Unity, was 85km (282,000ft; 53 miles).

The businessman was accompanied on the mission by the vehicle’s two pilots, Dave Mackay and Michael Masucci, and three Galactic employees – Beth Moses, Colin Bennett and Sirisha Bandla.

Virgin Galactic has revealed that it will have three offerings here: Single-seat reservations (at above-mentioned cost), multi-seat reservations (if you want to drag family or friends along), or the option to buy out all six seats for a “modest premium. 

Priority for these tickets will be given to early hand-raisers and people who signed up for the company’s Spacefarer Community, the latter of which have had to put down a US$1,000 deposit to join.

Some 600 individuals have already paid deposits for these tickets. They will reach a height where they can see the sky turn black and marvel at the Earth’s horizon as it curves away into the distance.

Such a flight should also afford them about five minutes of weightlessness during which they will be allowed to float around inside Unity’s cabin.

Unity is a sub-orbital vehicle. This means it can’t achieve the velocity and altitude necessary to keep it up in space to circle the globe.

The vehicle is designed to give its passengers stunning views at the top of its climb and allow them a few minutes to experience weightlessness.

Space tourism is a sector being rekindled after a decade’s hiatus, and it’s about to get very competitive.

The Russians, too, are reprising their commercial flights to the ISS, and there are even those who want to launch private space stations for people to visit. Among these is Axiom, a company started by a former Nasa ISS programme manager.

Virgin Galactic next spaceflight, Unity 23, is expected to take off in late September from Spaceport America in New Mexico.

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