English billionaire and Virgin owner, Sir Richard Branson, recently announced details of his SpaceShipTwo project, the rocket plane that will fly tourists into space.
After almost 2 years in top-secret development, the aircraft was unveiled to the media in the Mojave desert. Its size boasts that of a commercial passenger jet and will be transported by another craft, the WhiteKnightTwo, before turning on its rockets and blasting off into space. Passengers will get 5 minutes of celestial weightlessness before returning back into earthly gravity.
Initial voyages will cost passengers a whopping $200,000 and approximately 300 people have reportedly signed up for the trip so far. Among them, a few Canadians. They have either paid outright or put down a deposit to secure their seat to see the stars – the real stars – up close.
Virgin Galactic anticipates their first commercial voyage in space by 2011. Before that, there will be a battery of security tests in order to make this voyage as safe as those carried out by NASA. Once the rocket plane has met all its criteria, founders Branson and Burt Rutan, a reputed aircraft designer, plan to be on the plane’s first passenger flight .