Jaunted

For those of us without the extra seven or eight zeros at the end of their checkbook balance, Virgin Galactic is moving full speed ahead in suborbital space-tourism plans. Its mothership, White Knight Two, has undergone initial flight testing and is awaiting its cargo, SpaceShipTwo... The rides won’t take passengers to orbit, but they also won’t cost $20 million. Tickets are $200,000 for a ride to an altitude of more than 100 kilometers (328,000 feet) that will include several minutes of weightlessness. Virgin Galactic already has collected more than $40 million in deposits from 300 passengers.

Virgin Galatic insists that prices will drop precipitously once regular flights become a thing. We definitely have our fingers crossed because the other part of the report emphasizes that if there's going to be any space industry it's going to have to be private. When the economy began nosediving last summer, government space programs were among the first things to go. It doesn't look like those hard-fought budget allocations are coming back any time soon.

Virgin's SpaceShipTwo will be unveiled some time in December. The chief project engineer says that it "goes Mach 3 and folds in half," which, in addition to everything else, is quite simply awesome.

[Photo: Mark Greenberg/Virgin Galactic / Wiki Commons]

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· Space Tourism Coverage [Jaunted]
· Virgin Galactic Coverage [Jaunted]