SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Virgin Galactic, billionaire Richard Branson’sspace travel venture, plans to order five more spaceships and aims toturn a profit in five years from its commercial launch in 2010, anofficial told Reuters on Thursday.
Prospective space travelers have so far placed deposits totalingmore than $31 million for tickets that cost $200,000 each and wouldgive them five minutes in space, said Alex Tai, the firm’s groupdirector.
"In the short term, we have firm orders for five spaceships andoptions for seven … We believe there is a very strong market," Taisaid in an interview at the Singapore Airshow.
About 80,000 people from 120 countries have shown interest in thesecommercial space flights that are likely to start in 2010. Seriouslyinterested travelers are asked to deposit at least $20,000, accordingto Virgin Galactic’s Web site (http://www.virgingalactic.com).
"It’s silly to divide the $200,000 by that 5 minutes. It really is a life-time experience," Tai said.
Virgin, which aims to be the first to take paying passengers intospace on a regular basis, will invest $250 million in the spaceprogram, Tai said.
He declined to give the cost of each craft or the maker, though someparts will come from Pratt & Whitney, the jet engine unit of UnitedTechnologies Corp.
Asked when the company would become profitable, Tai said: "I imagine it will be inside the first five years."
Virgin’s SpaceShipTwo, unveiled last month and to be tested laterthis year, will be able to carry 8 people into sub-orbital space.Virgin aims to start with one flight a week before ramping it up to 14flights a week, Tai said.
For $200,000, Virgin will prepare space travelers over three daysfor their 2-hour flight beyond Earth’s atmosphere that will culminatein five minutes in space. The three-day program will include simulatinga zero-gravity environment, showing travelers what it means toaccelerate and decelerate quickly, as well as what the Earth looks likefrom space, Tai said. The spaceship will initially be launched fromMojave, California, but will eventually take off from a space port inNew Mexico.
Virgin Galactic is one of several high-profile contenders in the new commercial space race.
Others include Astrium, the space arm of European aerospace firmEADS, Blue Origin, started by Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos, SpaceExploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX), created by PayPal founder ElonMusk, and Bigelow Aerospace, a venture aimed at creating space hotels,started by hotelier Robert Bigelow.
The leader in the budding sector is Virginia-based Space Adventures,which started the space tourism phenomenon in 2001 when it put U.S.businessman Dennis Tito on a Russian Soyuz craft for a reported $20million.
(Additional reporting by Koh Gui Qing, editing by Neil Chatterjee, Valerie Lee)
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