Well the moment is finally here, the rich are leaving the planet!
Sir Richard Branson will fly into space next year – along with Angelina Jolie and 529 other passengers paying £128,000 each
- Tickets on craft cost £125,000 with stars such as Ashton Kutcher, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie already signed up
- Richard Branson and family will be first passengers
- Virgin to launch ‘cheap’ satellite-launch service using plane
- Commercial flights will begin next year
Sir Richard Branson today announced that he and his children will be the first passengers when the Virgin Galactic space tourism programme begins.
Virgin boss Sir Richard and son Sam and daughter Holly are expected to be flying 60 miles up into space on the SpaceShipTwo (SS2) aircraft by the end of next year.
Today, Sir Richard joined around 120 other tourists who have signed up for the two-hour flights, at £128,000 a trip – a total of 529 guests have already signed up.
As the travellers and Sir Richard posed at Farnborough Air Show beside a replica of SS2, Sir Richard also announced that the WhiteKnightTwo aircraft that will help launch SS2 into space will also be used for a new launch vehicle – LauncherOne – which will take small satellites into space for around a tenth of the present cost.
The Virgin Galactic team said a number of companies were keen to use LauncherOne.
From a spaceport built in New Mexico, USA, by UK architect Lord Foster, WhiteKnightTwo will take the SS2, with six passengers and two pilots, to a point about 50,000ft (up before the SST rockets into space.
Sir Richard and other passengers will be able to float around the cabin due to weightlessness before the SS2 effectively becomes a glider for its return to the spaceport.
