British airline magnate Richard Branson announced plans Monday to take ambitious travelers to tourism’s final frontier–space.
The flamboyant Branson told reporters that his Virgin Group hopes “to create thousands of astronauts over the next few years and bring alive their dream of seeing the majestic beauty of our planet from above … “
The two-hour flights from California’s Mojave Desert won’t be cheap, initially costing upward of $200,000. But passengers will get a week of training beforehand and will fly in relative comfort in a pressurized cabin that will make spacesuits or a separate oxygen supply unnecessary.
Construction of Virgin’s first spacecraft, named VSS Enterprise, is set to begin next year. Branson said he has signed an agreement with pioneering aviation designer Burt Rutan to build up to five ships based on Rutan’s SpaceShipOne, which in June became the first manned private craft to reach space.
That effort was funded by billionaire Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.
The new space tourism business will be called Virgin Galactic and will open early next year in order to launch commercial flights in 2007.
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Branson, 54, said that he plans to be aboard the first flight.
The tycoon, who owns Virgin Atlantic Airways, Virgin Records and various other ventures, is famous for generating publicity.
Last June he broke the world record for the fastest crossing of the English Channel in an amphibious vehicle, traveling to France in one hour 40 minutes.