Travel agents waiting for the price of space flights to come down will be disappointed to hear they’ll never be affordable to even their highest spending clientele.
Will Whitehorn, former president of Virgin Galactic, said the cost of a short hop into space was unlikely to come down to less than £60,000. "Unfortunately gravity doesn’t discount," he told delegates at the Advantage conference.
Whitehorn, one of the keynote speakers, said Virgin Galactic was hoping to launch the first commercial space flights within the next 18 months at a cost of $200,000 per person. "That price will come down within five to seven yeas, but I don’t think it will ever be much less than $100,000," he said.
Sir Richard Branson’s former right-hand man said space flights were more cost-effective than supersonic flights as they burn less fuel, and he said it could be possible one day to travel from London to Sydney in less than three hours by flying outside the earth’s atmosphere.
Virgin Galactic expects to become profitable in its first year of operations and Whitehorn said he anticipated a public flotation of the company within two years of the launch.
However, the closest most holidaymakers are likely to come to space flights is Spaceport America in New Mexico, the launchpad for the commercial space flights which Whitehorn said would become a major tourist attraction in its own right.
By Linsey McNeill
