‘Virgin Galactic will be ready for space tourism by the end of this year’

Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson says his company will be ready to conduct the first space tourism flights with SpaceShipTwo by the end of this year. If possible, he wants to make such a flight on July 20, on the fiftieth anniversary of the moon landing.

Richard Branson made the statements during an event at the National Air and Space museum in Washington, according to AFP news agency. According to Branson, his company will have completed enough test flights in four or five months and it should be feasible that he himself makes a first space tourism flight in July.

He says he will have to wait until his team is completely satisfied, but he thinks they will be ready to start space tourism by the end of the year. Virgin Galactic’s plan is to take people on the SpaceShipTwo spacecraft for a fee. It is launched from an airplane and then flies to an altitude where passengers can experience temporary weightlessness and see the curvature of the Earth.

In its last test flight in December, SpaceShipTwo reached an altitude of 82.7 kilometers. Everything above 50 miles is considered space by the US Air Force, but it is below the Kármán Line, the 100-kilometer boundary that is internationally recognized as the beginning of space.

Branson says the next test flight will take place on February 20. He also announces that Virgin Galactic will cost him $35 million a month, which is about 31 million euros. He previously said he has invested more than $1 billion in the space company since its inception in the early 2000s.

Virgin Galactic Space Ship Two