Who would have thought that instead of buying a ticket to another country you can now buy a ticket to space! Virgin Galactic took on step closer to space travel with the opening of the world’s first spaceport in the US state of New Mexico.
The plane which has been specially designed for space travel with take members of the public who have paid $200,000 each for a three hour flight.
How does the plane work?
At 50,000 feet the carrier plane releases the space ship and its own rocket will boost it too 62 miles above the earth at the edge of space. The six passengers will experience 5 minutes of weightlessness and stunning views. They are paying for the pure experience of being some of the first commercial passengers to go into space.
How soon will we have to wait?
It was announced that the first trip should be undergoing in 18 months time that is not a very long time at all! However if all the test flights happen successfully we could see the world’s first commercial space flight in under 9 months.
Could there be any environmental issues with space travel?
The excitement of this very real dream is something that the whole world has been waiting for years. Perhaps this could be the beginning of a whole new commercial market. However there are a few issues that some people have brought up, the carbon output. Surely this space transport is going to add onto the carbon bill?
However we have been informed that the carbon output will be slightly less than a business seat from London to New York. Although this does not seem like a large carbon admission, can you imagine if thousands of people were taking flights up into space?
General Information:
This truly exciting break through in the world’s space history was shown by Richard himself, he said that ‘Today is very personal as our dream becomes more real’. My only wish is that it was slightly cheaper! $200,000 seems slightly overpriced even for something as spectacular as this, the world will be eager to see whether the price of these rare seats will drop down as time passes. Perhaps in a few years to come we might be all taking a visit up to space instead of our neighboring country. Who knows? It just shows that the supposed impossible is not impossible!
