Affluent Page Magazine Presents More Affordable Suborbital Space Flight

While Virgin Galactic’s first manned flight only took place this month, Lee Valentine, executive vice president of the Space Studies Institute in Princeton, N.J., expects that the cost of space tourism will significantly decrease in the next few years. At this weekend’s NewSpace 2010 Conference, he stated predictions that space travel will only cost $50,000 per seat by the year 2014. Currently, Virgin Galactic is charging $200,000 for a ticket aboard their SpaceShip Two, but their current company policy seems to embrace Valentine’s prediction having stated in the past that they have “managed to reduce drastically the price of getting to space and over time will reduce it still further.” In comparison to the first commercial space orbit in 2001 which cost millionaire Dennis Tito $20 million, their innovations in space flight have already managed to make space tourism more widely accessible.

However, should the novelty of space flight spur you to reserve seats sooner than 2014, Virgin Galactic is still accepting deposits for suborbital space flight. Since our last posting on the company, Virgin Galactic’s ventures into space have become less theory and more reality. Both ship models, the WhiteKnight Two and SpaceShip Two, had all systems evaluated during their 6 hour and 12 minute flight this July bringing the SpaceShip Two, a passenger ship, one step closer to commercial travel. On board, each passenger would have a clear view of the cosmos through two large windows, both overhead and alongside of seating, giving space tourist the option of remaining seated or floating in zero gravity. The ship boasts safety with a carbon composite construction and a new kind of horizontal air launch instead of a traditional ground launch. The new technique requires less fuel and allows for smoother landing.

And although the science of space travel limits amenities aboard the ship, Virgin has not abandoned their luxury style. As part of their deposit, aspiring astronauts purchase membership to “perhaps the world’s most exclusive club with privileged access to all aspects of the project as it progresses…from Astronaut Forums with Sir Richard Branson on his Caribbean island home or his South African game reserve to opportunities to tour Scaled Composites”.of new vehicles. For booking please contact one of the many accredited space agents across the globe or visit the Virgin Galactic website.

~Affluent Page