With every test flight and equipment deployment, Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic is getting closer to its mission: to become the first company regularly taking tourists into space.
Next month, the company takes one of its biggest steps yet when the state of New Mexico hands over the keys to Spaceport America, Virgin Galactic’s state of the art launch and control facility, which was built by the state in a partnership and is being leased back to the company.
Like every major milestone in the company’s fast moving evolution, this one warrants a party - a party that will be attended by Branson and many of Virgin Galactic’s early adopter customers. This is one of the hidden perks that comes from laying out big dollars on the dream of future space travel: along the way, “Founders” and “Pioneers,” as the earliest customers are known, have has red carpet access to a slew of special events and galas, like VIP tickets to NASA space shuttle launches, the unveiling party for Spaceship Two, the first test launch, centrifuge tests, even invites to Branson’s famous luxury tropical lair, Necker island (recently damaged by fire).
“We continue to recognize how important our customers are to the company, because without them there would be no Virgin Galactic. We try to keep them engaged, and try to involve them every time another milestone is reached. When we open Spaceport America they will be invited to attend a behind the scenes tour with Richard Branson,” explained Carolyn Wincer, Head of Astronaut Sales for the company.
As she notes, much of the R&D and construction cost to date have been financed by the pre-sale of flights - $57,000,000 so far, from roughly 440 passengers in 45 different countries (The US has the most). The ride costs $200,000 and the “Founders” were the first 82 people who put down a 100% deposit. This guarantees them each one of the six available passenger seats on one of the first 14 launches, which will be distributed via lottery system, giving all an equal shot at the first historic trip. The next group who put down the price in full but were too late to be Founders are “Pioneers,” guaranteed seats in the first year of operation. Virgin Galactic anticipates a passenger load of about 500 space travelers annually. After the first 500 guests, seats are on a first-come, first-served basis and currently can be booked with a 10% deposit, or $20,000 down, which is fully refundable. There are currently about 130 of the coveted first year seats remaining for anyone ready to plunk down the full payment.
Virgin Galactic’s operation consists of a mother ship, Eve, which will carry SpaceShip Two (second generation of the original design) up to 50,000 feet, before releasing it. Then SpaceShip Two will use its hybrid rocket motor to propel itself into space. It is basically a rocket powered glider, and can return and land without engine power. This summer SpaceShip Two passed a critical test when it made two successful flights and landings within 24 hours. The progress has been so impressive that NASA has contracted Virgin Galactic to deploy payloads in space on its behalf.
SpaceShip Two carries six passengers and two pilots, and every seat is identical with the same size window. There are also transparent panels in the roof, since passengers will have the option of unbuckling to float in the cabin during the zero-gravity portion of the flight, and can still view their surroundings from windows or ceiling. SpaceShip Two is 60 feet long and about eight feet in diameter, the same size as a Falcon 900 private jet, but it has no floor with the seats attached to the bottom of the fuselage, creating a lot more overhead space for “floating.” The entire flight from takeoff to return will last between 1 ½ - 1 ¾ hours, but the spaceflight portion, reaching 70 miles from earth and zero-gravity, will last just four minutes.
Stressing safety above all other things, Virgin Galactic refuses to give an estimated launch date, but the industry word is late 2013. Carolyn Wincer said, “We’re probably still a few years away. We are halfway through the test process, and safety is paramount, so there is no set time frame. We are now hot testing the rockets on the ground. But the bottom line is that people can now be an astronaut. It’s easy to do. Five years from now it will be a normal thing to do, like getting on a plane.” And like commercial aviation, Wincer predicts that the price of space travel will go down rather than up over time, as the efficiencies improve and the research costs are spread over more passengers. You could wait for prices to drop, or you cold snag one of the last remaining year one seats and become part of history.
In the United States, Virtuoso, a high-end consortium of travel agencies, which includes many of the best travel agents in the business, has been given exclusive rights to sell seats on Virgin Galactic, through a sub-group accredited as “Space Agents.” One of these, and one of the top Virtuoso agents, Anne Scully, President of powerhouse McCabe World Travel, told me that she anticipates a slew of bookings once final tests are done and the launch date nears. “We have clients who have been everywhere else –this is the final frontier. But the people who signed up early have already experienced so much it amazing, they are loving it even without having gone into space yet.”
