Affordable Space Travel Closer Than Ever with Virgin Ship

Sir Richard Bronson, British entrepreneur and chairman of the umbrella company behind Virgin Atlantic Airways and Virgin Records, unveiled today a model of the spaceship he hopes his space-travel company Virgin Galactic can use to take paying passengers into space as soon as next year.

Branson hopes to be the first to create, brand and market affordable space travel to large numbers of paying customers who long to experience the unparalleled thrill of a space voyage. As of now, Virgin's suborbital flights will cost passengers about $200,000 -- a price tag Branson feels is too high: "Within five years of launching, I would hope the price would come down fairly dramatically."

Currently, over 200 people are on the waiting list for Virgin Galactic's initial public voyage, including physicist Stephen Hawking and designer Philippe Starck. Many of these eager would-be space travelers attended today's unveiling, in the hopes of seeing the vessel that would transport them into space.

The space flight would leave from a launch pad in New Mexico, travel about 62 miles above sea level and return to Earth in under three hours. In that time, passengers would experience about five minutes total of weightlessness.

Despite the frenzy over Branson's foray into the celestial market, Virgin Galactic is but one of several big-wig contenders in the commercial space race, including Europe's EADS Astrium, Amazon.com creator Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, Bigelow Aerospace and several others. Perhaps the leader in this niche industry, however, is Space Adventures of Vienna, Virginia -- who initiated the new "space race" when it sparked the star-tourism phenomenon with a 2001 mission putting U.S. businessman Dennis Tito into orbit for a reported twenty million. It has since sent four other paying passengers into space the same way.