Virgin unveils spaceship to offer space tourism

Branson said Monday that he hopes to offer tickets aboard his Virgin Galactic spaceliner for US$200,000 each, giving adventurous, well-heeled travellers a chance to experience space for a fraction of the cost of a seat on a NASA shuttle or Russian spaceship.

Branson, who is spending between US$250 million and US$400 million on the space venture, also said he planned to be on the craft's first passenger flight some 18 months from now, accompanied by his family and the U.S. designer of the space ship, Burt Rutan.

The futuristic-looking craft is composed of two parts — the SpaceShipTwo and the WhiteKnightTwo, the prototype of which has been dubbed Virgin MotherShip Eve in a tribute to Branson's mother.

The craft, emblazoned with the image of a young woman that represents Branson's mother Eve diving through space, resembles two jet aircraft joined together at their wing tips.

The White Knight will transport the two-pilot, six-passenger SpaceShipTwo high above the Earth where the space pod will break away and propel beyond the atmosphere. SpaceShipTwo “is attached to the mothership in the middle and when the mothership gets up to 60,000 feet, the spaceship will drop away,” Branson said.

“They will ignite the rocket and it will go from zero to 2,500 miles per hour in 10 seconds,” he told AFP.

Once it has reached suborbital space, SpaceShipTwo passengers will be able to view the Earth from portholes next to their seats, or unbuckle their seatbelts and float in zero gravity.

“This is a very big space ship so you have got a lot of room to float around, lots of windows to look out,” Branson said.

“There will be two astronauts at the front, but the six passengers will be astronauts by the time they are finished,” he said.

The ship's unusual design allows it to return to Earth like a shuttlecock, decreasing the heat buildup seen in some NASA spaceships.

Branson said he had long dreamed of being able to offer space travel.

“I think the idea came when I was sitting watching the moon landing many years ago,” he told AFP.

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