Billionaire Richard Branson’s company hopes to sell 1,000 tickets before the launch of its first commercial flight, scheduled for late 2022.
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A trip to 450,000 dollars. The space tourism company Virgin Galactic announced Monday, November 8 that it has sold around 100 tickets for a stay in space since August. It had previously sold, in all, about 600 reservations for a price between 200,000 and 250,000 dollars.
The new tariff “was well received”, estimated the company, recalling that it aims to sell 1,000 tickets before the launch of the first commercial flight, scheduled for the end of 2022. “The demand for space travel is strong and we are selling seats faster than we expected”, Virgin Galactic CEO said in a statement (in English).
The founder of Virgin Galactic, the Briton Richard Branson, was on July 11 the first billionaire to go to space aboard the ship of the private company that he himself created. The competition for space tourism is raging, from Richard Branson to Jeff Bezos to Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, which in September sent four space tourists for three days around the Earth.
But the Virgin Galactic spacecraft was temporarily grounded by US authorities in September following an incident during this flight, the craft having briefly flown outside the airspace authorized for the mission. Virgin Galactic has also postponed its first commercial flight, now scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2022, time to strengthen the security of the devices.