Sir Richard Branson, the British entrepreneur has signed a £14m deal to see passengers taken into space. He is having five "spaceliners" built in the US by the team behind the SpaceShipOne vehicle. The California-based rocket plane became the first privately developed carrier to go above 100km in June. It will cost around £100,000 to go on a "Virgin Galactic" spaceliner, and the first flights should start in around 2007.
According to research Richard Branson has completed, around 3,000 people out there would be interested in taking these journeys. If it is a success they can move into orbital flights, and maybe even build a hotel up there.
'The deal is with Mojave Aerospace Ventures, the company set up by aviation pioneer Burt Rutan and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen to exploit the technology developed for SpaceShipOne. SpaceShipOne is one of more than 20 craft vying for the $10m (£5.7m) Ansari X-Prize, which rewards the first team to send a non-government, three-person craft over 100km (62 miles) into space, and repeat the feat in the same carrier inside two weeks.'
"Virgin has been in talks with Paul Allen and Burt throughout this year and in the early hours of Saturday morning signed a historical deal to license SpaceShipOne's technology to build the world's first private spaceship to go into commercial operating service," said Sir Richard, who founded the Virgin Group of companies.
Mojave Aerospace Ventures has been asked by Sir Richard to produce a bigger version of SpaceShipOne. The Virgin SpaceShip (VSS) will carry five passengers compared with the two-passenger capacity currently offered by SpaceShipOne.
The final design for the maiden ship, the VSS Enterprise, should be signed off in 2005.
The vehicle will then have to be built and tested before beginning a scheduled space service.
"Every passenger will have a spectacular view; they will have considerable windows and luxurious seats," Sir Richard said.
"Initially, they will take off from the Mojave Desert near Los Angeles. It will be a three-hour journey. Passengers would have about a week's training prior to taking off."
All sounds very interesting huh. I mean it is the next logical step to go on holiday in space. It just seems to be happening very fast. Three years we will be able to say we are going on holiday to the moon (well maybe not!). It's quite exciting, and all this coming from the man who has only just managed to get his trains running on time!