20k Down Can Get You Up Into Space

TheOzz writes "Virgin Galactic announced this week that space tourism will be a reality by 2008. The company is already taking $20,000 deposits for the estimated $200,000 seats on their new spaceships. You can reserve your seat today at the Virgin Galactic web site. The Virgin Group's Branson teamed up with SpaceShipOne builder Burt Rutan to form The Spaceship Company that will build these new commercial spaceships. They are building 9-person spaceships that will carry 7 paying passengers and two crew members, according to space.com. They report that test flights should start in 2007."

Comments

Re:Title misleading

[spencer1]

Hence the "Down".

Like Pan Am

[blueZhift]

This sounds like what Pan American airlines did back in the 60s when 2001: A Space Odyssey came out featuring the Pan Am spaceplane. They too sold tickets for future spaceflights. But I guess Virgin has a better chance, perhaps, of fulfilling the promise. And it may help that most probably don't remember what happened to Pan Am either!