With a planned launch date in 2010, Virgin Galactic is talking profit in its first five years. SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Virgin Galactic, billionaire Richard Branson's
space travel venture, plans to order five more spaceships and aims to
turn a profit in five years from its commercial launch in 2010, an
official told Reuters on Thursday.
Prospective space travelers have so far placed deposits totaling
more than $31 million for tickets that cost $200,000 each and would
give them five minutes in space, said Alex Tai, the firm's group
director.
"In the short term, we have firm orders for five spaceships and
options for seven ... We believe there is a very strong market," Tai
said in an interview at the Singapore Airshow.
About 80,000 people from 120 countries have shown interest in these
commercial space flights that are likely to start in 2010. Seriously
interested travelers are asked to deposit at least $20,000, according
to 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 into
space on a regular basis, will invest $250 million in the space
program, Tai said.
He declined to give the cost of each craft or the maker, though some
parts will come from Pratt & Whitney, the jet engine unit of United
Technologies 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 later
this 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 14
flights a week, Tai said.
For $200,000, Virgin will prepare space travelers over three days
for their 2-hour flight beyond Earth's atmosphere that will culminate
in five minutes in space. The three-day program will include simulating
a zero-gravity environment, showing travelers what it means to
accelerate and decelerate quickly, as well as what the Earth looks like
from space, Tai said. The spaceship will initially be launched from
Mojave, California, but will eventually take off from a space port in
New 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 firm
EADS, Blue Origin, started by Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos, Space
Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX), created by PayPal founder Elon
Musk, 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 $20
million.
(Additional reporting by Koh Gui Qing, editing by Neil Chatterjee, Valerie Lee)
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