Wired News reports that SpaceShipOne’s successful manned private spaceflight has already drawn an investor: “Branson’s Virgin transport, entertainment and communications group has signed an agreement with pioneering aviation designer Burt Rutan to build an aircraft based on Rutan’s SpaceShipOne vessel, Branson said.” Here’s the great part: “The new service will be called Virgin Galactic and expects to fly 3,000 new astronauts in its first five years. Fares will start at $208,000 for a suborbital flight, including three days’ training.” [emphasis mine]
Governments have been diddling in space since the summer I was born (35 years ago!!), it will take private entrepreneurs to finally make space available for the rest of us.
12:24 pm on September 28, 2004
