the space tourism company Virgin Galactic founded by British entrepreneur Richard Branson, announced Tuesday that it will begin selling tickets this week for joyrides to the edge of space. The cost: a whopping $450,000.Starting Wednesday, members of the public will be able to reserve a spot on an upcoming suborbital spaceflight. “We plan to have our first 1,000 customers on board at the start of commercial service later this year,” Michael Colglazier, CEO of Virgin Galactic, said in a statement.
During the 90-minute flight, passengers will reach an altitude of more than 50 miles and experience roughly four minutes of weightlessness before returning to Earth. Space tourists will fly aboard the company’s rocket-powered vehicle, known as SpaceShipTwo Unity. The craft is designed to take off on a conventional runway while attached to the underbelly of a carrier ship. The vehicles fly to 50,000 feet, where Unity is released and its engine ignites to power it to the edge of space.
Virgin Galactic’s joyrides take off from Spaceport America in New Mexico. Reservations include several days of training and spaceflight preparedness programs, according to the company. Last year, Branson himself flew to space on Virgin Galactic’s first expedition with a full crew. That July flight later became the focus of a mishap investigation by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, after it was determined that the SpaceShipTwo craft went off course from its assigned airspace during its descent.