In a news release by LOS ANGELES (AFP) a British billionaire, Sir Richard Branson has made plans to unveil a space craft today, Monday that could soon carry tourists on an out-of-this-world trip into space.  All this for a mere $200,000 each.

They have chosen the  Mojave desert between Los Angeles and Las Vegas becasue of  the resembulanc to the lunar landscape they will need to stage the roll-out of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo (SS2), aerospace engineer, Burt Rutan’s brain child.  SS2.  The craft can carry six passengers and two pilots.  The plan is to begin test flights next year and start commercial flights between 2011 and 2012.

Virgin Galactic, owned by Branson’s Virgin Group and Abu Dhabi’s Aabar Investments, has reported that they already have about 300 pre paid clients from around the world that have paid a total of 40 million dollars in deposits to guarantee a ride on the maiden voyage.

They further report that Pamela Hurley-Moser, owner of Hurley Travel Experts in Portland, Oregon, is among 50 travel consultants chosen as accredited space agents for Virgin Galactic.

The company will have special trips to Iceland, Thailand and, yes, space.  Imagine a flight from Hong Kong to London in 3 hours.  That would certainly appeal to a lot of travelers.

Now mind you these brave souls are willing to pay the hefty fee for a seat on the two-and-a-half-hour flights that are to be 62 miles above Earth.

This company now takes the ashes of hundreds of people at a time into space, up from about 27 people in 2007.

It seems like an over indulgence for adventurous millionaires will some day spur the construction of facilities for a solar power satellite system, asteroid exploration, mineral extraction and research of compounds cheaper to produce in microgravity.

A spokesperson states, “Once we have routine transportation into suborbital and orbital space we will see business travel and package delivery times reduced and we will begin to see construction of large facilities in Earth orbit.”

Mother Ship WhiteKnightTwo has been test-flying since last December. Photo: Adrian Gaut

The WhiteKnightTwo mothership, that is to be launched Monday has a wingspan of 140 feet, will carry the smaller SS2 rocket ship 50,000 feet  into the sky and then detach and continue up into space.   Then the tourists will get an experience of about five minutes of weightlessness.

Amazing that in the near future we will be looking at flight travel in a whole new way.   I guess it is about time.  The government run space program really has far more restrictions and a private run space program really can progress so much more faster.

I sure hope that there will be some restrictions on the amount of garbage that can be left in space by the private companies.  It will be very interesting to follow the progress of this flight.

I wish all a safe and productive flight.  What do you think?  Share your comment on this here and let us all know.

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• Branson to Introduce Tourist Spaceship in Mojave (nytimes.com)
• Richard Branson joins the space race (guardian.co.uk)
• Virgin Galactics Space-Bound Aircraft Is Ready for Liftoff (wired.com)
• Virgin Galactic Poised to Unveil Suborbital Space Liner (space.com)
• After 5 years, space tourism a work in progress (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Space Tourism Yet to Fly, 5 Years Since 1st Flight (usnews.com)
• Bad News For NASA Is Good News For Space Tourism (wired.com)
• Virgin Galactic preps SpaceShipTwo (gadling.com)
• T-minus 18 months and counting: Virgin Galactic and the future of space tourism (scientificamerican.com)
• 5 Years After SpaceShipOne: Commercial Spaceflight Ready for ‘Go’ (space.com)
• Space resort on schedule to open in 2012 (nationalpost.com)

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