Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic expects to start flying in 2008.
Designer Philippe Starck, former soap star Victoria Principal and ‘Superman Returns’ director Bryan Singer have booked their flights for tourist trips in outer space, an official from the company selling the galactic voyage said Monday.
Virgin Galactic, a Virgin Group company, has sold some 200 tickets to passengers for suborbital flights, starting in 2008, said Will Whitehorn, the company’s president.
It has collected 8.5 million pounds (US$15.6 million, euro12.4 million) in deposits for the flights that cost 109,000 pounds (US$200,000, euro158,000).
Despite the seemingly hard scheduled time here, I have heard Virgin Galactic officials state emphatically they will not fly until Burt Rutan says SpaceShipTwo is ready nor will they put pressure on him to rush the job. Branson is in this for the long haul, and that means he has to ‘Bring ’em Back Alive’.
The article at space.com has been pulled.
Yeah, likely they broke some sort of embargo on the press release.
No, it is there. I just fatfingered the URL.
Burt Rutan was at Oshkosh last week again asking for people to go work for him. It’s real interesting and important work, but it’s got to take a special type of person who wants to work out in the Mojave desert with nothing around for a long distance.