Buying tickets for the next Virgin Galactic space flight? Time to part with $450K

Virgin Galactic’s spaceflight will launch from Spaceport America in New Mexico later this year

It was last year that the Virgin Galactic, with its founder Richard Branson on board took off to space. The flight is to happen again, and people can buy tickets so that they can cement a place in the annals of space history.

The general public will be able to buy their Virgin Galactic tickets starting today (Wednesday), by parting with an amount of $450,000. Though the space mission had earlier decided to offer tickets to only those people who had deposited money to be on the waiting list, the company has reversed this decision allowing more people to buy tickets.

Virgin’s spaceflight will launch from Spaceport America in New Mexico, and would take a total journey time of 90 minutes. Passengers will be able to observe the Earth’s curvature through 17 windows on the craft. The company had sold 700 tickets till November last.

Virgin Galactic commercial flights from this year

Virgin Galactic would begin its full scale commercial flights later during 2022, and looks forward to having its first 1,000 customers on board in time for the flight. The flight scheduled for later this year would be seen by the company as a pre-cursor to its regular operations and expansion of fleet in the near future.

When its flamboyant founder Richard Branson hopped on to the space mission flight last year, it was a success scripted well in the space travel arena. Virgin Galactic, which was born in year 2004, will now look towards building on the success of this high profile test mission conducted during July with Branson on board.

Branson vs Bezos in space race

When Branson took off on his flight spaceward, he also did beat Jeff Bezos, the founder of Blue Origin. The two billionaires are on a space race with the world watching in fascination.

Though the last July flight was a success, Virgin Galactic had not ventured into space ever since. The space craft is believed to have been undergoing enhancements so as to spruce up safety features before the next flight. Though a test flight was earlier scheduled with the Italian Air Force, it had been put off to later this year.

With Branson, Bezos, and Elon Musk already putting in their weight and money in the commercial space travel arena, it looks like more flights would take off in regular intervals.

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Sanjeev Ramachandran

A journalist with 23 years of experience, Sanjeev has worked with reputed media houses such as Business Standard, The Ne More »
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