Virgin Galactic to open spaceflight ticket sales with $150,000 deposit

Shawn Knight

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Staff member
Bottom line: Do you have nearly half a million dollars to spare and a deep desire to travel to space? If so, Virgin Galactic is ready to do business. The space tourism company will open ticket sales to the general public on February 16 with an initial deposit of $150,000 to reserve your seat. Final payment is due before the flight.

Flights will launch from Spaceport America in New Mexico. Future astronauts will stay with their guests at forthcoming custom accommodations and experience several days of preparedness activities. Guests will enjoy world-class amenities and bespoke itineraries during astronaut training programs.

Flights will last approximately 90 minutes and consist of an air launch and Mach-3 boost to space. As the ship reaches its highest point, astronauts will experience several minutes of out-of-seat weightlessness and views of Earth from the ship’s 17 windows that only this level of money can buy.

Share value in Virgin Galactic is up nearly 17 percent on the news as of this writing.

Virgin Galactic conducted its first fully crewed flight with founder Richard Branson onboard last July. Branson beat rival Jeff Bezos to space by nine days, as the Amazon CEO punched his ticket to space via his spaceflight company Blue Origin on July 20.

Interested parties can get a jump start on the application process over on Virgin Galactic’s website. No word yet on when the first commercial flights are expected to take place.

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To call this "space travel" makes me cringe.

It's not. You're just in high altitude flight.
Exactly. They're paying for a week~ at "custom accommodations and experience several days of preparedness activities", and "world-class amenities and bespoke itineraries during astronaut training programs."

Then they get an amusement part ride that simulates "space travel" at the end.

Its exactly like Space Camp, but fancier.

I'll bet they even hire some retired astronauts to "train" the people who sign up.
 
I’d love to go on this. But I don’t have a spare $150,000 just lying around. I keep that money safely buried. Its a lot of effort to get to it and I don’t want to have to dig past a certain someone.
 
I’d love to go on this. But I don’t have a spare $150,000 just lying around. I keep that money safely buried. Its a lot of effort to get to it and I don’t want to have to dig past a certain someone.
Don't forget that that $150,000 is just a deposit. You'll have to dig up a lot more later.
 
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