"Curious-yellow" wrote in message ...
Posted on Tue, Sep. 28, 2004




It's the market system that will develop space travel imho.

If I were filthy rich, I would take advantage of this in a heartbeat.







Airline mogul plans to offer commercial space flights by '07

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald...9776962.htm?1c


Richard Branson's Virgin Group signed a deal to build the world's first private
spaceship to go into commercial operating service. The craft will be based on Burt
Raton's design for SpaceShipOne.

BY JILL LAWLESS

Associated Press


LONDON - Airline mogul and adventurer Richard Branson announced plans Monday to boldly
go where no private transport company has gone before -- into space.

Branson's Virgin Group said it would offer commercial space flights by 2007, with
Branson himself joining the inaugural journey.

The bid is a natural for Branson, a high school dropout turned flamboyant tycoon who
has made several failed attempts to circle the world by hot-air balloon.

''It's just the kind of thing he absolutely loves, because it gets him maximum
publicity,'' said David Learmount, operations and safety editor of Flight
International magazine.

''But the technology is there; it's plausible,'' Learmount said.

Branson, 54, announced a deal to license technology from Mojave Aerospace Ventures,
the firm owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen that bankrolled June's historic
90-minute space flight by the aircraft SpaceShipOne. The Virgin craft will be based on
Burt Rutan's design for SpaceShipOne, a stubby rocket-plane capable of carrying a
pilot and two passengers.

''Virgin has been in talks with Paul Allen and Burt throughout this year and in the
early hours of Saturday, signed a historical deal to license SpaceShipOne's technology
to build the world's first private spaceship to go into commercial operating
service,'' Branson told a news conference in London.

SpaceShipOne cracked the barrier to manned commercial space flight in June by taking a
90-minute flight almost 62 miles above Earth, just over the distance scientists widely
consider to be the boundary of space.

Virgin said it planned to begin construction of the first vessel, VSS Enterprise, next
year and to offer flights by 2007.

The new service will be called Virgin Galactic and expects to fly 3,000 new astronauts
in its first five years. Fares will start at $208,000 for a two- to three-hour
suborbital flight, including three days' training.