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Virgin Galactic sells tickets for first space flight
If the weather is right, Virgin Galactic today will fire up SpaceShipTwo and blast the six-passenger commercial spaceplane on a flight that will break the sound barrier.
If today’s test, and a few more along the way, go well, the maiden voyage into space should take off from Spaceport America in New Mexico in the first quarter of 2014.
Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson said he will be on it, briefly floating weightless and looking down at Planet Earth.
Tickets for future flights into space already are on sale, at $200,000 a seat, and more 500 have been sold.
Today "will be a historic day," Branson promised in an interview with the Las Vegas Sun. He was in Vegas kicking off Virgin America’s new service to that city.
SpaceShipTwo’s predecessor, SpaceShipOne, soared 100 kilometers (62 miles) in 2004 to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize for private-sector spaceflight. It is now in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington.
The Virgin Galactic spaceline fleet will operate five spaceplanes.
In addition to private passengers, the planes could carry scientific payloads for NASA and other organizations.
By Cheryl Rosen
Cheryl
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