Monday, September 27, 2004

w00t! How cool is this? Richard Branson's space tourism foray -- "Virgin Galactic". Xeni Jardin: BoingBoing reader Jonathan Wrigley says, "Combine the chutzpah of Sir Richard Branson with the smarts of SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan (a bit of of Paul Allen's cash helps too), and you've got Virgin's latest venture - VirginGalactic. Suborbital space tourism for the rest of us!" Link Shown here: Branson holds a model of the Virgin-licensed spacecraft. Five of these "spaceliners" will be built in the US by Mojave Aerospace Ventures, the team behind SpaceShipOne (which makes a go at the Ansari X-Prize this Wednesday morning -- I'll be there, with a crew from NPR). Provided that the venture meets regulatory approaval, flights will begin in 2007 at about $170-200K US per person, with plans to reduce price by half over time. What a news-packed month this has been for aerospace! Virgin Galactic coverage: UK Telegraph (Link), and BBC News (Link) (Thanks also to Ari Kolbeinsson, Peter Flint, Daen de Leon, John Hoke, and other readers!) [Boing Boing] 1:08:50 PM     leave/read comments []