News & Analysis

VIRGIN plans to send tourists into space in three years using a Virgin Galactic spaceship it will unveil late next year and begin test flying in 2008.

SpaceShipTwo will carry six passengers and two crew and launch from 60,000 feet, after being carried to that altitude by a new jet aircraft Virgin has christened WhiteKnightTwo.

Seats will cost $200,000 and offer 20 minutes in space out of a two-and-a-half hour flight.

Virgin aims to lower prices as the programme develops, although chairman Sir Richard Branson said: “Space travel is never going to be dirt cheap, but it could be equivalent to a luxury holiday.”

Branson launched Virgin Galactic in 2004 with a promised investment of $250 million.

Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn claimed the flights would use less fuel than a single transatlantic business travel seat, with a similar amount used to reach the launch altitude. He said: “It’s not just about space tourism. It’s about beginning to do science in space.”

The spaceship and carrier will be manufactured from composite materials, making them much lighter than existing aircraft and spacecraft. The company is also working on a new fuel.

Flights will take off initially from the Mojave Desert in California before moving to a base under construction in New Mexico. They will carry passengers up to 80 miles above the Earth’s surface.

Two hundred people have paid $200,000 apiece to help fund the programme, and Virgin has five spaceships and two WhiteKnight carriers on order.

Virgin has announced an exclusive deal with travel agency group Virtuoso to sell space packages in the US. Whitehorn said the company would not need the same sort of agency deal in the UK.

Virgin Atlantic frequent flyer Alan Watts (pictured) will be among the first 1,000 people to go into space. He has two million air miles with the carrier and plans to fly in 2009. He said: “I planned to save my air miles for retirement. Then my daughter reminded me to think of the view.”

How travellers can reach for the stars

• Packages will cost $200,000 for four days. Clients will train for three days, staying at a luxury hotel
• A carrier will fly them to 60,000 feet, then launch SpaceShipTwo
• At 70-80 miles above Earth, the rocket motor will switch off and passengers will be able to remove seat belts to experience zero gravity for 20 minutes
• The ship will descend to 80,000 feet and begin a glide to Earth with passengers strapped flat to withstand the force of gravity on re-entry
• Passengers could fly in normal clothes, but may experience incontinence on re-entry. Virgin has yet to decide whether space suits will be required
• Clients must buy their own insurance and will have to sign a waiver
• Virgin plans one flight a day by the end of the programme’s first year and two by the end of the second.

'Our fuel will be cleaner'

SIR Richard Branson defended his space programme against criticism it will damage the environment after he suggested the aviation industry cut damaging greenhouse gas emissions by 25% in two years (Sir Richard Branson reveals plans to cut aviation emissions, Travel Weekly September 29).

He said: “I’m extremely worried about global warming and we need to do everything we can to tackle it.

“But we’ve created a fuel that can put a ship into space for less than the fuel used for one business-class seat across the Atlantic. The materials we’re using are those we would like Boeing and Airbus to use for our aircraft.
 
“This programme has to be environmentally benign or I would not want to be involved. It could be a forerunner of the aircraft of the future, made of composite materials, using cleaner fuel, without damaging the environment.

“If the technology is as good as we think, we expect to be able to fly people to Australia or Los Angeles in half an hour, possibly within 10 years.”

Branson and his children will be among the first passengers to make the trip into space.

• Is it ethical to pursue commercial space travel in the face of global warming? Have your say on the Green Debate forum