Dubai firm becomes first to charter space flight

An unnamed Dubai-based company has become the first in the world to charter a space flight for its top management.

'I cannot reveal any details about the company or the deal, other than (saying that) the flight they chartered can take up to six passengers but they might end up flying only two people,' The National newspaper quoted Sharon Garrett, the head of space marketing and public relations at Virgin Galactic's Dubai office, as saying.

She said the company deposited 1.8 million dirhams ($500,000) last week to charter one of Virgin's commercial aircraft

A part of Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group, Virgin Galactic is offering sub-orbital space flights and, in the future, orbital space flights to the paying public.

Virgin Galactic's mission is to fly passengers who are not professional astronauts to an altitude slightly over 100 km and allow them to experience weightlessness.

The first flight is planned for 2009.

According to the newspaper, the two-and-a-half-hour trip, on SpaceShipTwo, as booked by the company, will take off from the Mohave Desert Spaceport in California.

The spaceship will be attached to a base ship known as WhiteKnightTwo, which, after a runway take-off, will reach an altitude of 15,240 metres.

At that point, the SpaceShipTwo will be released and its own rocket will blast it to 4,000 kmph, three times the speed of sound, to reach 109,728 metres.

Once in space the passengers will be allowed out of their seats for four minutes to float around in zero gravity.

After seven minutes in space, the craft will return to earth, using a wing feathering technology, which will help reduce the intense heat generated by re-entering the atmosphere, before making a runway landing.

source

I pronounce you spaceman and wife: Branson to be the first man to marry a couple in space

By NATHAN KAY

Virgin Galactic boss Sir Richard Branson is planning to set yet another record – by becoming the first man to marry a couple in space.

The 58-year-old billionaire intends to conduct a ceremony 70 miles above the Earth on the first Galactic sub-orbital flight next year.

He has already officiated at one wedding in mid-air. Last year he was ordained for the day in an online church to marry Virgin America marketing director Dimitrios Papadognonas and Coco Jones on a Virgin flight from San Francisco to Las Vegas.

Record breaker: Sir Richard

 

He also helped officiate at the wedding of Google co-founder Larry Page on his private island, Necker, in the Caribbean.

A spokesman for Virgin Galactic told The Mail on Sunday: "We have had two bookings involving marriage, one to get married in space and the other for the couple to have their honeymoon in space.

"It is possible that Richard could obtain a licence to conduct the marriage."

The couple who have booked in for a honeymoon on the £100,000-a-ticket maiden flight are Virgin Galactic adviser George Whitesides and his new wife, Loretta Hidalgo.

The Virgin Galactic space project is progressing at a dramatic rate and customers will take part in the first test flights this summer.

In January, Branson unveiled a model of SpaceShipTwo, the vehicle he promises will turn space tourism into reality.

It is designed to hitch a lift on an aircraft to 50,000ft before blasting into the outer atmosphere.

So far 200 people have paid for the sub-space experience. Princess Beatrice, whose partner Dave Clark works in the marketing department of Virgin Galactic, has said she plans to be the first Royal in space.

Former Dallas actress Victoria Principal, the designer Philippe Starck and wheelchair-bound Professor Stephen Hawking have also paid for trips.

The spokesman said: "Customers will have a two-hour flight, go up to 70 miles above the Earth and experience amazing views of the planet, G forces and weightlessness after a three-day training programme."

Branson has been involved in a number of world record-breaking attempts.

In 1986, he set a record for crossing the Atlantic in a powerboat. And in 1991 he crossed the Pacific in a balloon, breaking all existing records.

North Norfolk man's space dream

"EVERYBODY has a dream, mine happens to be expensive."

The words of Richard Burr, the north Norfolk man set to join an elite rank by becoming a 'space tourist' at the eye watering cost of $200,000 - around £100,000.

The 52-year-old property developer and businessman from Aylsham sits at number 205 on the list of people getting ready to board the first Virgin Galactic flights, which will allow ordinary folk to become astronauts.

Mr Burr has already stumped up £75,000 of the cash but still has something of a wait.

Those taking part will board a horizontally launched purpose built 'mothership' aircraft, which carries with it the spaceship, before being flown to a height where the spaceship can be detached and propelled into orbit. Two pilots and six passengers will be in the spaceship on each flight.

In January, Mr Burr travelled to New York to meet with other prospective astronauts, Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson and to attend the launch of the final design plans for the aircraft and spaceship.

The process now should see the finished aircraft and spaceship “rolled out” by July, tests conducted for several months, licences awarded and the first commercial flights by the end of next year, said Mr Burr.

“Because I am not top of the list I would expect to be up in early 2010, although that could change of course according to the process taking longer, or people dropping out.

“It's very exciting of course, but I wouldn't say I was excited in a schoolboy way, although that will probably come as it nears.

“The prospect of looking out of the window and seeing the stars and the earth is an incredible thought.

“People will think it is a huge amount of money, but bear in mind that if you look back to the first trans Atlantic flights, people were paying what would now be around £30,000 to get to America.”

The trip itself will be made from New Mexico and will last about two hours, made up of an aircraft climb of an hour, a spaceship boost into space in less than two minutes, a 'zero g' weightlessness experience of four to five minutes, a re-entry into the atmosphere of two minutes and a glided landing of 50 minutes.

Virgin Galactic have stated they hope to fly 500 people in the first year and 50,000 in the first 10 years.

Visit www.virgingalactic.com for more information.

Arab company charters space craft in world first

A Dubai-based Arab company has become the first ever in the world to charter a space craft for its top management, ArabianBusiness.com can reveal.

The company last week handed over $500,000 as a deposit to Virgin Galactic, to charter one of the company’s commercial spacecrafts.

Details of the company are likely to be made public in July this year. Sources suggest the two hour flight in space will take place some time in 2010.

The total deal, the first ever of its kind, is worth $1.2 million. It is understood the deal was done through Sharaf Travel, Virgin Galactic’s UAE agent.

Virgin Galactic is expected to begin its commercial space flights next year, with tickets for the first 100 passengers going for $200,000 per passenger.

The Virgin Galactic experience involves boarding SpaceShipTwo which is attached to a mother-ship known as WhiteKnightTwo.

Following a run-way take-off the space craft will climb to an altitude of 50,000 feet where the spaceship will be released and the rocket ignited.

The rocket burn acceleration powers the spaceship to the speed of sound in just 10 seconds, and over three times the speed of sound in under 30 seconds.

The G-force surge will push the clients back into their seats as they head into the darkness of space to an altitude of 110 kilometres above the earth's surface.

When the rocket motor shuts down, all passengers, who by this stage are officially ‘astronauts', will experience the silence of space, and majestic views of earth as they float around the large cabin in zero gravity for four minutes.

The spaceship returns to earth, passing back through the atmosphere using a unique wing feathering technology to ensure stability and to minimize heat intensity, before making a normal runway landing.

In total the space flight will last for around two hours.

Branson and his rocket

 

A few months ago, an Australian stand-up comedian who is beyond cure, told a small frigid gathering in Mumbai, "How can they call an airline Virgin. It's terrifying. You know what virgin means? Never done it before." He surveyed the room with a blank face and said, "I want my airline to be called Slut."

In the past, far more serious men have wondered if people will feel comfortable flying at nearly the speed of sound, 10 kilometres above the earth, in a pressurized metal capsule called Virgin. Especially if they knew that the airline is owned by one Richard Branson who has escaped death on several occasions while trying to set speed records in planes, balloons and boats. He rappels down buildings too, and has aborted at least one such attempt midway after a sudden backache that wise women will call ‘age'. Yet, thousands have paid him good money against a promise that in about three years he will send them to space. Over 60,000 people have registered with his Virgin Galactic, 200 of them have even paid the entire ticket price of $200,000. One man exchanged his Virgin Atlantic frequent-flier miles for his seat. They hope to leave a golden desert in California and shoot 100 kilometres into space. "They will return too," Branson says, "Virgin Galactic is not where you send your mother-in-law on a one-way flight."

He is in his suite at the Hilton in Mumbai. Somewhere behind him, through the large indestructible glass window, I can see the Arabian Sea ablaze in the afternoon sun. Some people are hovering around in the room, one of them is his blonde secretary whose stretch pants seem aghast at the tightness of it all. And she sounds like a man.

Branson looks pensive and unremarkable. Even mature. But the folklore around him is inescapable. A 57-year-old Englishman who is believed to be worth about $8 billion; head of an empire that is involved in aviation, rail, energy, telephony, condoms, pickles and leisure, who famously said that he did not know the difference between net and gross; once a lover of many; a rare celebrity who has featured in a list of Britain's most beloved and also the most hated; a spectacle whose autobiography is foolishly called Losing My Virginity, and more admirably, a man whom Donald Trump hates for reasons other than the fact that Branson has hair. "I don't believe he is a billionaire," Trump once said. Nobody believes that about Trump, either.

In the opulent suite, Branson tries to be polite and measured but he is evidently tired. That morning he had strung himself 20 floors above the ground and glided down to launch Virgin Mobile in India. He was in a few meetings after that, all vouchsafed with stringent time slots by his assistants. But he was five minutes late for this interview because Sameera Reddy, the buoyant nymph, had spotted him in the hotel and had wanted a chat.

Branson readily admits that his flamboyance endangers the image of Virgin as one of the most respected brands in modern times. He looks at the floor and chuckles as he remembers the day when his balloon crashed into the Pacific. "We took out full page ads in newspapers that said, ‘Next time, Richard, take the plane." (Strangely, in an interview to the New Yorker he had said that the wording of the ad was, ‘Come on, Richard, there are better ways of crossing the Atlantic'.)

"In this time and age, the things I do," he says, "is achro...anarcho...sorry... anachronistic. Actually, I am dyslexic." Taare Zameen Par missed this one. He is overtly embarrassed by the ordeal of pronouncing anachronistic. This shy face of Branson, so different from the image he has often tried to portray, this boyish sheepish face, I have seen before from as close.

Just over two years ago, his executives had agreed to play a cricket match with Mumbai's press club team. Branson arrived on the Oval Maidan flanked by a dozen white girls, all dressed in Virgin Atlantic's cabin crew uniform. They walked like doe. When Branson eventually got ready to bat there was a feeling that we will not measure up. The rumour was that the backyard of one of his homes was a cricket field complete with a pitch and all that. But he was bowled by the first ball. Since it was Richard, the umpire smiled kindly and called the delivery a no-ball. The second ball was slow. Branson was bowled again. He was bowled by the third ball too. I was at the Third Man position and as he walked back, I saw his face clearly. Beaming but demolished by embarrassment. However, for a man who did not know how to bat, he got a lot of publicity for playing cricket in Mumbai. He didn't field even.

"I am actually very shy," Branson says, "I was incapable of delivering a public speech until I was 25. Now I make half a million for just talking for charity. Not bad, eh? But I am still shy." Yet, he has received media space worth millions of dollars through relentless stunts. Once when British Airways, his bitter aviation rival, offloaded him from a flight, he held a press conference in the airport and made it a huge media event. British Airways was also involved in spreading propaganda against him. When he sued and won £610, he distributed it among his employees as "BA bonus". On another occasion, when his flight was delayed and he had to hire a chartered plane for $2,000, he divided the cost by the number of seats and went around the airport with a board that said something like, "Virgin Atlantic: Beef Island to Puerto Rico for $39".

Branson, through the creation of Virgin Galactic, comes across as a visionary today. So far, only 450 humans have ever been to space, almost all of them professional astronauts. Branson says he will send thousands out there. But some observers have voiced the concern that Branson's interest in space tourism is merely another attempt to seek publicity if not for himself, for the Virgin group. With an investment of about $120 million, an amount that is not very distant from how much global firms spend on brand building, Branson has bought the tag of space pioneer. A steal. But he says, "I am truly very excited by space tourism. I believe that the future of mankind is in space. Virgin Galactic will send 50 people to space every month. I expect this number to grow." He also believes that the future of aviation itself is inextricably linked to suborbital space travel. "In just 10 years time if everything goes well," he says, a plane from New York will head to space and use the gravity of Earth to fling itself above Sydney. "If we can bring that kind of technology to aviation, New York to Sydney is possible in 30 minutes."

His involvement in environmental concerns too is bitterly suspected by environmentalists. They claim his interest is not genuine, that he merely wants to throw money to buy a halo. Throughout the interview Branson consciously attempts to veer the conversation towards environment. He reminds me that he has pledged $3 billion over the next 10 years to aid the research and development of cleaner fuels. He has also announced a $25 million prize for anyone who can find a way to remove carbon from the atmosphere.

"Increasingly, private enterprise is doing what governments used to do," he says, "Also, while the life of an average head of state is just a few years, a business chief can go on for decades. So companies are able to exhibit more stability than governments. But nothing can replace the good that an honest government can do."

It will be interesting to watch how Branson's future unfolds. Will his space tourism succeed? Will his billions clean the air? After all the publicity, if he fails to deliver then he will begin to feel as though the world has got a whiff of the liquid component of his SpaceShipOne's hybrid engine—compressed nitrous oxide, which is laughing gas of course.

Lottery-winning beneficiary: I'm heading to space

An Auckland beneficiary who bought a lottery ticket on a whim is more than $5 million better off and hopes to travel into space.


The man, who wants to remain anonymous, was on a bike ride when he had a spur of the moment drink stop outside the Westview Superette in Titirangi, NZ Lotteries said.

After seeing an advertisement for the Big Wednesday jackpot, he bought a ticket, and yesterday discovered he was the big winner.

He won the first division prize package valued at $5,247,140, comprising $3 million in cash, an Aston Martin V8 Vantage, an Audi Q7, a $250,000 credit card, $250,000 worth of luxury travel, a $500,000 bach, a $750,000 luxury apartment and a boat.

He also won Big Wednesday's second division of $221,478 by covering heads and tails on his ticket.

The man collected his prize in Wellington today.

"People have always told me that you can't win these big prizes - but now I'm the lucky bugger this week", he said.

"I also want to look at travelling in real style - by booking a trip into space. It would be great to one of the first kiwis to make that trip."

Virgin founder Richard Branson is finalising plans to take paying passengers into space next year.

Virgin Galactic will take people 112km above the earth for about $200,000 per person.

The winner said his first call was to a family member to share his good news.

The next call? To Winz to cancel his benefit.

NZPA
source

You may now float about the cabin

'SPACE: The final frontier, to seek out new life and civilisations." So said Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise as he surveyed the expanding cosmos.

But exploration, discovery and adventure are not the sole domain of science fiction: they have always been defining elements of the human psyche.

Once mankind satisfied the lesser, more fundamental requirements such as food, shelter and community, we looked beyond the horizon and wondered, "What if?"

Sure, it took thousands of years for our sluggish and humble species to progress from canoes to steamships, yet much less than one hundred to go from powered flight to space travel.

From a traveller's perspective, now is the most exciting time in our species' existence.

Such have been the astounding technological advances that, in one lifetime, man has flown to the moon and now transverses every continent at an altitude of 30,000ft in the company of hundreds of others, enjoying the latest movies and gourmet meals in pressurised comfort. To many, it's even mundane.

Space travel fell somewhat flat after the Apollo program. Many pundits, such as sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke, predicted we'd be sticking flags in Mars and holidaying on the moon by now.

Somewhere along the way we were sidetracked – probably because our expensive, clumsy rockets weren't as reliable as we'd hoped. This is World War II technology, after all.

Riding what amounts to a ballistic missile still hasn't deterred some, despite a pricetag equivalent to the GDP of a small African republic.

At time of writing, there have been five "spaceflight participants" aboard the Russian Soyuz craft, each traveller paying a reported $20 million for the week-long joy ride to the International Space Station (ISS).

Tickets are now being sold for a planned flight to orbit the moon. Price? $100 million each.

Affordable space flight? Enter the X PRIZE Foundation, a non-profit body offering multi-million dollar awards for technological breakthroughs. The 2004 Ansari X PRIZE was won by famed aerospace designer Burt Rutan and financier Paul Allen, who led the first private team to build and launch a spacecraft capable of carrying three people 100km above the Earth. Pounced upon by Virgin supremo Sir Richard Branson, commercial flights are now tantalisingly close.

Branson's Virgin Galactic spaceline expects to launch about 500 passengers annually.

His proposed fleet of five spaceships will have a crew of two and just six passengers, paying US$200,000 ($215,000) each, flying to an altitude of about 110km – the very edge of space – to experience almost 10 minutes of weightlessness.

Unlike NASA's Space Shuttle, which uses huge and dangerous solid fuel rocket boosters, Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo will launch from a jet-powered mother ship called WhiteKnightTwo, and use a single hybrid rocket motor to reach its peak sub-orbital altitude. And because the craft will only travel at around 4000km/h, it will not require heatshields for re-entry.

Branson appointed "space agents" last year, and Gil McLachlan of Harvey World Travel in Manly is one.

"There are at least 10 Australians fully paid up for the flight," said Mr McLachlan, "and there will be more in the next 12 months, for sure."

One such passenger eagerly awaiting his moment on the launch pad is Wilson da Silva, editor of Australian science magazine Cosmos, whose ticket was one of four bought by Dr Alan Finkel, the publication's chairman.

"Hard to believe that it's really going to happen," says da Silva with obvious delight. "It's been a dream of mine since I was a kid."

In Clarke's seminal 1968 work 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dr Heywood Floyd settles into the Orbiter Hilton for a family video call at a rather clunky terminal.

The choice of the Hilton name for that movie was no coincidence; it was a carefully engineered piece of product placement. William Barron Hilton I, the hotelier and grandfather of the famous Hilton sisters, bravely predicted in 1967: "When space scientists make it physically feasible to establish hotels in space and to transport people, the hotel industry will meet the challenge."

Beyond an orbiting hotel, his plans extended to the Lunar Hilton. "To start, we'll have only three floors, which will eliminate elevators and minimise power requirements," he said.

"The multi-storied underground hotel will come later.

"But – and this is very important – in almost every respect the Lunar Hilton will be physically like an Earth Hilton."

But Hilton appears to have lost the inside running to Branson and Robert T. Bigelow, a rival hotelier who is now an aerospace magnate. His Genesis modules are already in space, testing the concept of inflatable habitats for possible "hotel" adaptation.

For most of us reading this far, the reality of space flight will remain a fantasy, experienced vicariously in the Sensurround stadium of the cinema.

But the excitement of weightlessness can be achieved at Kennedy Space Centre, in Florida, on a Zero Gravity flight aboard G-Force One, the plane used to train NASA astronauts and film star Tom Hanks for Apollo 13. For $3500, you even get a DVD of your flight. I predict, however, that theme park, holodeck-style virtual reality will cater for the masses long before actual space flight does.

After all, it was to such a synthetic environment that Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's homesick space adventurers went to "get away from it all".

As for the visionary Roddenberry ... his one-way trip into space was in an urn.

The Sunday Telegraph

Sharaf Travel & Virgin Galactic Mid East tempt would-be astronauts with 'a taste of space'

Dubai headquartered Sharaf Travel and the Virgin Galactic Accredited Space Office in the Middle East has launched “A Taste of Space”. The new package has been designed to tempt would-be astronauts for the Virgin Galactic sub-orbital flights slated to commence end of 2009.

“Following the Global Accredited Space Agent Forum earlier this year where I underwent  the Virgin Galactic astronaut training  in the centrifuge for myself, I wanted to make this experience available to the people of the Middle East. ‘A Taste of Space’ is definitely for people looking for something unusual for their next short break and will give potential customers the opportunity to quell any fears with the nearest thing to real-life space travel without leaving earth,” said Sharon Garrett, Head of Space Marketing & PR, Virgin Galactic Accredited Space Office, Middle East.  

According to Garrett, the training for the sub-orbital space flight at the Nastar Centre will equip participants with the skills they require for Anti-G Straining Maneuvers and to fully understand the physiological effects of space flight before they even set foot into the centrifuge.  

“The training is fascinating, yet easy to understand.   The team at the Nastar Center make you feel incredibly comfortable and instill confidence.   I know that everyone who decides to take advantage of ‘A Taste of Space’ will sign up for the real thing with Virgin Galactic,” she said.

Explaining her own experience, Garrett says, “…the experience was one of the best of my life. I was a little anxious but once I underwent the training and stepped into the centrifuge, which is kitted out with full visuals and sound I had the most wonderful time. I felt as though I really was an astronaut !”

The Stars: Our Destination

Vacations in space and time

Forty years ago it was “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Now it is a small step for anyone who dares.
For the last four decades, space flight has been neglected as a primary conduit to human evolution. Popular opinion sees space flight as a sidebar to human development. Even NASA, with their use of aging, decrepit and obsolete shuttles, appears to believe the same. But fear not, for our savior has arrived in the form of a virgin. Well, the Virgin Galactic program that is. Virgin has taken the initiative in commercializing space

Image courtesy of virgin galactic, design by sky 26
travel as a luxury for those who can afford it

The dream of everyday space flight has been around a long time. But, while science fiction has been escalating in the last decade with advanced computer-generated graphics, society has largely forgotten actual space exploration. In the mid-20th century, the United States and the former Soviet Union were feverishly involved in pushing space exploration. It seemed that, like in Star Trek, space exploration was best executed by the government.
In the 1980s, NASA began to launch shuttles that took off from and landed on Earth more than once. These shuttles cut down on the cost of development. The down side of the shuttle, however, was they offered no progression. The need to develop new models was minimal.
Since then, however, the idea of international cooperation has inspired multiple governments to join together and build the International Space Station. Bent on scientific discovery rather than territorial expansion, the station has ended much of the exploration being done by governments. The weight of exploration is now left to the private sector. With little room being left on Earth to expand empires, corporations like Virgin have seized the opportunity to expand their market into space. It offers free expansion as no one currently owns space.
Further initiative came from the Ansari X prize. It inspired innovators and dreamers to build the first commercial sub-orbital space craft. Many competitors strove to reach the goal and win the prize: $10 million. It was a company named Scaled Composites, founded by Burt Rutan, that eventually designed the winner. Named SpaceShipOne, it flew at an altitude of more than 100 kilometres. The design of SpaceShipOne is simple and efficient, which makes it significantly less expensive than NASA’s fuel-guzzling shuttles.
SpaceShipOne uses a form of biofuel. The fuel is practical enough to allow the ship to reach sub-orbit, but requires less than half of what a normal shuttle does. To achieve optimal efficiency, Scaled Composites attached the SpaceShipOne to WhiteKnightOne, an aircraft. Instead of launching from the ground, ShipShipOne launches after becoming airborne. This technique allows for even more efficiency.
The ship’s efficiency was what drew Virgin’s Sir Richard Branson. The company was inspired to begin its own attempts at building a commercially viable passenger space craft. Based on the SpaceShipOne’s design, SpaceShipTwo has become Virgin Galactic’s platform for allowing private citizens to visit space.
“It was Stephen Hawking who first got me thinking about this issue when he explained clearly and concisely to the BBC that mankind had no option but to get to space as quickly as possible and start doing things up there that we have been doing on planet Earth, but in a much more efficient manner,” Branson said at SpaceShipTwo’s unveiling.
Branson seemed sincere when he said that space flight is essential to human development. Without prospects of commercial success, however, Virgin Galactic would be unable to justify their investment to stockholders.
That profit requirement means a ticket to space does not come cheap. Current pricing places the cost of a ticket at $200,000 US a seat. The ticket will buy tourists a several minute journey at sub-orbital altitudes.
Though the initial price of a ticket will prove far out of reach for most consumers, it is expected to incrementally decrease as the program continues to pick up speed. After a few years and a few hundred people, the price of a ticket will most likely go down to $20,000 US a piece.
There are others, however, who are finding a way around paying the hefty fee. A British businessman was able to exchange two million Air Miles points for a ticket aboard one of the first flights. However, for the majority of people, $20,000 is far too expensive, even if it is to witness something as spectacular as seeing planet Earth from space. 
Yet Branson sees this as just the beginning of better things to come for the industry.
“With the end of the oil era approaching and climate change progressing faster than most models have been predicting, the utilization of space is essential not only for communications but also for the logistics of survival through things such as weather satellites, agricultural monitoring, GPS and climate science.”
Not only would space be a reasonable way to guarantee survival of the species, it would also guarantee optimal profit should Virgin Galactic hold a monopoly on commercial space flight. However, without a profit, there would be no motivation for space tourism in the first place.
Several companies, such as Rocketplane Limited, Space Adventures and EADS Astrium, have announced their intention to be commercial spaceflight agencies. There is no doubt that in the future, spaceflight will become a standard of travel.
For Virgin Galactic, however, tourism is just the beginning. The company will most likely expand from tourism to a more lucrative industry like transportation from one side of the Earth to the other. Instead of taking a day to travel to Japan, a spaceship capable of holding up to 100 passengers could cut that time significantly.
The advantages of commercial space flight are numerous. Its ability to push innovation is already taking the place of NASA. Government will always play a role to some degree, but ventures such as asteroid mining, solar energy collectors and colonization will be ideal for corporations to invest their time and money into because of the potential for maximum profit.
Although governments could plan and build environments on other planets to house humans, it would be capitalism that forces the economy and infrastructure. What drives people to exotic places is not just a sense of adventure but, like with any new frontier, the possibility of discovering a better life with better job opportunities. Those jobs will be provided by companies like Virgin.
Relatively speaking, there are still more than enough complications prolonging spaceflight developments. While interplanetary exploration is accepted as a future prospect for mankind, interstellar spaceflight is a bit more complicated with the vast gaps between stars. It would currently take centuries to get to the nearest star systems using the most powerful propulsion methods currently available. Though most of us will not be able to see the interstellar steps, we will be alive to see the first true steps of space exploration.

 

Written by Brent Rose, Contributor

Space flight experience at a bargain price

A promotional shot of Virgin Galactic's Spaceship Two.

If a $260,000 flight into space busts your budget then maybe the $23,000 sub-orbital space flight training is more up your alley.

Open to the public for the first time, the simulation has been designed to mimic an intergalactic experience.

Three Australian travel agents have recently returned from the Virgin ASA Global Forum in the US where the Virgin brainchild was launched.

But the ride comes at a cost.

Virgin is planning on putting together half day (about $2030), full day (about $3390) and two-day (about $5645) packages for space junkies.

Edwin Spencer, director of Spencer Travel in Sydney, said that the simulation conveys what a trip in space is like, however the G forces on the ride are a little lower. He thinks that it is worth the cost.

"You get the exact same experience as if you were going to do one of the flights (into space)," Spencer said from the conference in Philadelphia.

"They (Virgin) are trying to promote this facility to give you the experience of what it would be like on a space flight. It's so deadly accurate."

Having said this, Spencer admits that it's not for everyone.

"I think by the time you package it all and you get them over here it's probably going to cost about $20,000, with airfares and accommodation.

"... It's not going to appeal everyone but it's brand spanking new ... it's something really really unique.

"The big boys toys kind of people. The guys that love the adventure."

The travel packages will include the sub-orbital space flight training in Pennsylvania and the longer sessions will also include training on a parabolic flight and fighter pilot training in Las Vegas.

Spencer Travel, accredited as a Virgin Galactic Space Agent, sold Australia's first fully-paid ticket to space last year.

The journey into space takes two and a half hours to fly up 15,240 metres. The mothership then drops the rocket and it is sent soaring to 116,000 metres.

To put it into context, a standard aeroplane flies at about 9000 metres.

Passengers then experience five minutes of weightlessness before being returned to earth.

The $260,000 journey takes just a day but involves two days training.

The first 100 visitors to go into space, deemed Founders by Virgin, are expected to make the trip in 2010. Most positions on the Founders team were invitation only, but one fully-paid female from Australia made the rollcall.

"She is determined to be in the first 100," Spencer said.

The space-loving customer wants to keep a low profile, but Spencer said that she is an adventurer.

He said that space travel hadn't aroused the same excitement here as it had in the US.

"It's not that big in Australia but in the US it's huge," he said.

"This is just the beginning. It's the ultimate experience in life.

"It's that whole concept of being able to see Earth out of the left hand porthole and space from the right hand porthole."

IF YOU GO:

Visit: http://www.spencertravel.com.au

Kiwi space hopefuls at Virgin Galactic unveiling (+photos)

Two New Zealanders who hope to become the first Kiwis in space were in New York last week for the unveiling of Virgin Galactic's launch system.

Christchurch real estate agent Jackie Maw and businessman Mark Rocket, a space enthusiast who changed his name by deed poll, have bought $280,000 tickets on one of British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson's space journeys, scheduled for late next year or early 2010.

The three-hour trip will take them 112km above the earth.

Established in 2005, Virgin Galactic successfully launched its SpaceShipOne craft into space in 2004, winning the $10m Ansari X prize for the first non-government organisation to launch a reusable manned space craft into space twice within two weeks.

With SpaceShipTwo and its "mothership" launch vehicle, White Knight Two nearing completion at the Scaled Composites plant in California, more than 200 people worldwide have signed up and paid deposits for space trips.

Ms Maw said the seriousness of the project hit home to her at the design unveiling in New York.

"It is not just about sending passengers into space as a commercial venture," she said in a statement today.

"While that is part of it, we are in effect a source of capital which is enabling developments and exploration which will change our world."

Ms Maw, who has already completed an astronaut training course at the National Aerospace Training and Research (Nastar) centre in Philadelphia, said it was "incredibly motivating and exciting" to know those involved were part of that exploration.

Mr Rocket, co-director of Rocket Lab, a company that hopes to put New Zealand's first rocket into space this year, was the first New Zealander to buy a Virgin Galactic ticket.

He classifies himself as a "space industry participant" as well as a Virgin Galactic founding passenger and said he was equally motivated by the unveiling and what it meant long-term.

The first 100 people to sign up and pay for their future flights were invited to the New York unveiling - a media event and cocktail party covered by 30 television channels.

Mr Rocket said while predominantly from the United States and Britain, people were there from all over the world, including small places such as Estonia and Morocco.

Coming from New Zealand "attracted interest, but was not seen as out of the ordinary", he said.

- NZPA

 

Source: nzherald.co.nz

The new form of travel - Virgin Galactic

Up, up and away ... Branson said he would like to see the company's second spaceport set up in Australia in 2006

INITIALLY dismissed as another Richard Branson publicity stunt, Virgin Galactic is starting to attract serious attention as the potential of the British entrepreneur's ambitious space venture hits home.

It may still be early days, but some observers are already cautiously predicting Galactic will be a turning point in the commercial development of space.

Virgin Blue chief executive Brett Godfrey is among those who believe the technology being developed by Branson's "spaceline" will quickly move beyond joy rides for the well-heeled.

Godfrey, who has paid $280,870 to be among the first to head into space when Virgin Galactic begins operations, can see the concept developing into a new form of travel.

The Virgin boss is far from starry-eyed about his pending trip into the fringes of space. He insists he did not have a lifelong dream to become an astronaut. Instead, he is keen on understanding a technological advance he predicts will produce important spin-offs. He believes there's no reason technology similar to that used by Galactic will not eventually be used for sub-orbital flights between continents.

Instead of cruising back down to the same place, passengers will be able to go to another spaceport on another continent, the airline executive predicts.

"The reason I've invested my money is that I want to be part of the technology and understand it as best we can because I believe this will be the way of the future," he says.

"If, in 10 or 15 years, we're not getting to London in 45 minutes from Sydney, then we will have gone backwards.

"And it doesn't have to be done at a higher fuel cost."

SpaceShipTwo unveiled

While Godfrey concedes that some people may see the venture as an excuse for rich people to spend money, he points to parallels when aircraft first started flying. "Now it's mass transportation," he says.

"I think we've got to look at alternative technologies."

He points out the value to business people of being able to cut down the time spent travelling between countries to just a couple of hours. "The blokes that own corporate jets today, what would they pay to be able to get to Los Angeles or New York or London within a couple of hours?" he says. "A fortune, I think."

Virgin Galactic passed an important milestone last weekend as it unveiled the design for both SpaceShipTwo, the vehicle that will initially take eight astronauts into space, and White Knight Two, the twin-hulled mothership that will carry SS2 to its launch altitude.

The system is a successor to SpaceShipOne, the Burt Rutan-designed craft that won the $11 million Ansari X Prize after it become the first non-government reusable space vehicle to make it into space.

The original project was backed by a $20 million investment by computing legend Paul Allen – said to be the same amount NASA spent developing a pen that could write in space – although the Microsoft founder was not interested in commercially exploiting the breakthrough. This was when Virgin Group moved in to license the technology. White Knight Two is now close to completion at designer Rutan's Scaled Composites facility in California's Mojave Desert and is expected to start flight testing in the northern summer.

Go green machine

The world's biggest all-carbon composite aircraft has the wingspan of Boeing 757 and is powered by four Pratt&Whitney PW308A engines. It has been designed with the idea of lifting other payloads, such as small low-earth-orbit satellites, into space at costs significantly less than currently available.

SpaceShipTwo is about 60 per cent complete. It also has the flexibility to accommodate scientific and commercial applications.

Galactic now has more than 200 individuals and 85,000 expressions of interest from people wanting to experience space.

This translates to a deposit base of more than $31 million and $50 million in income to the fledgling spaceline.

The plan is to take the astronauts to a height of 110km in a sub-orbital flight that will give them about four and a half minutes of weightlessness.

There will initially be one flight per week but it expects this to increase to one or possibly two a day after operations move to its new spaceport in New Mexico.

The 18m spaceship, which will carry six passengers and two pilots and is about the size of a Falcon 900 executive jet, will hitch a ride to about 50,000ft before detaching from the mothership and igniting its hybrid rocket.

This sort of air launch is less fuel-hungry and environmentally damaging than a ground-based launch, and this is what allows the use of lightweight composites.

Scaled Composites is also looking for a more efficient and environmentally friendly fuel than the rubber and nitrous oxide combination that powered SpaceShipOne.

Reach for the skies

The climb to the maximum altitude will take about 90 seconds as the spacecraft reaches three times the speed of sound.

Shortly before the apogee, the spaceship will fold its wings as it prepares to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. The feathered wings are designed to act as an air brake, significantly reducing the forces and heat on the craft during re-entry, until they are deployed at about 60,000ft for an unpowered glide back to the ground.

One of the big questions for passengers and regulators will be the overall safety of the program, which has not been without its mishaps.

Scaled Composites is still trying to determine the cause of a rocket explosion last July that killed three workers and resulted in occupational health and safety fines of more than $28,000.

Rutan admitted at the launch that the accident was delaying the engine's development but said he was confident the spaceship would meet its demanding specifications.

He told reporters that the flights would at least be as safe as air travel in the 1920s and hundreds of times safer than government-funded space travel had been so far.

Galactic has ordered five spaceships and two carriers for its initial operations but Branson makes no secret of the fact that he sees this as just the start.

Branson's space mission

It was the famous physicist, Professor Stephen Hawking, who got Branson thinking about the project. During a BBC interview, Hawking said that mankind had no option but to get to space as quickly as possible.

"Our population is now heading to 9 billion people by the middle of this century – that's three times more than when I was born," Branson says.

"With the end of the oil era approaching, and climate change progressing faster than most models have been predicting, the utilisation of space is essential not only for communications but also for the logistics of survival through things such as weather satellites, agricultural monitoring, GPS and climate science.

"I also believe that some day we will be able to use space as a source of energy for the planet, through solar power satellites, using the most sustainable source available &$150; our sun."

Branson also sees the potential for delivering satellites and for a sub-orbital, passenger-carrying vehicle, although he admits the later might not happen "for some time".

What part Australia has to play in the commercialisation of space, beyond supplying astronauts, remains to be seen. Branson said in 2006 that he would like to see the company's second spaceport set up in Australia.

By Steve Creedy, Aviation writer

Serge Dive Interviews: Carolyn Wincer, Head of Astronaut Sales, Virgin Galactic

Sir Richard Branson always fantasised about space travel. So when Dr Peter Diamandis dreamt up the $10m (£4.8m) Ansari X-Prize - the inspiration for private space travel - aerospace engineer Burt Rutan, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and Branson teamed up. In June 2004, SpaceShipOne successfully completed her first test flight.

- What exactly is the Virgin Galactic experience?

It is a sub-orbital spaceflight which will be available to the paying public. Following astronaut training the space tourists take the SpaceShipTwo flight. The climb up to 50,000ft for the air launch will afford amazing views. After a brief freefall when SpaceShipTwo drops from her mothership, the rocket burn will push them back in their seats as the spacecraft accelerates to supersonic eye-watering speeds within 10 seconds of ignition, then to almost four times the speed of sound in 30 seconds. The sky turns from blue to black as they are propelled almost vertically out of Earth's atmosphere and into space.

The rocket engine will be shut off to reveal instant silence. Astronauts will have 1,000km visibility with the thin blue line of the atmosphere, the blackness of space and the curvature of Earth plain to see, all while floating weightless around the cabin. After a few minutes, they will begin to feel Earth's gravity pulling them back home, peaking at 6 Gs during a carefree and relatively heat-free re-entry. After a 45-minute glide back to the spaceport, they will greet their loved ones and be given their Virgin Galactic astronaut wings. All for just $200,000 (£96,900).

- How have Virgin Galactic sales gone to date?

Since 2005, more than 200 people from 31 countries have paid a deposit, and some 70,000 people from around the world have expressed interest. We also have over 82 'accredited space agents' in 17 countries, currently accounting for 50% of sales.

Tell us about the involvement you have had with Philippe Starck and Stephen Hawking...

Philippe is amazing to work with and we feel incredibly privileged to have his creative input. He provided the inspiration for our brand and ensures all aspects of design maintain brand integrity.

Professor Stephen Hawking has a deep desire to go to space and we hope to help him fulfil that. He has contributed so much to our understanding of the universe and inspired people to look for answers to some of the biggest questions ever asked - namely, how did we get here?

- Is space travel the future of luxury travel?

I think it is the new frontier of luxury travel. Within 10 to 15 years, people will be visiting hotels in orbit, shortly followed by holidays to the moon and hopefully beyond. I hope that in 40 or 50 years' time we will have managed to create a vibrant industry enabling tens of thousands of people to work, live and holiday in space, and one that has made positive contributions to the issues facing our planet.

- Which country will use Virgin Galactic the most?

The US is the most important, with around 50% of sales to date. Thankfully, our price is in US dollars so Americans are still comfortable with buying.

- Which luxury companies do you respect?

I hugely admire Virtuoso. Matthew Upchurch has created a dynamic and innovative organisation. He has unbelievable foresight: about 10 years ago when everyone else was saying that travel agents were a dying breed, he instinctively knew that travellers were always going to need them.

- What mistakes have you learned most from?

Thinking if successful companies do things a certain way there is a good reason for that, and we should do it that way too. It couldn't be further from the truth.

- What is the key driver for luxury travel?

Accessibility. As a destination or experience becomes more accessible, the high end of the market drops it like a hot cake and moves onto something more exclusive, or at the very least, more expensive. Only product innovation, coupled with courage, can keep a company exclusive in the eyes of the luxury traveller.

- What advice would you give the industry?

Define your values as a company. Words like 'honest' and 'exciting' make excellent brand values.

- Serge Dive is one of the three founding members of the International Luxury Travel Market, held in Cannes.

Do you want to join the 68 - mile high club with Richard Branson?

By Damon Syson

The ultimate holiday destination is not longer a seven-star hotel or a remote Caribbean island. In fact it is only 68 miles away - yet it will cost you £300k to get there. Richard Branson takes LIVE on an exclusive tour of his space centre



Hi, I'm Richard Branson and my hobbies are… "mad sports, I suppose."

Branson, his 22-year-old son Sam and I are sitting in the classroom of the National Aerospace Training and Research Center (Nastar) in Pennsylvania.

We're preparing to experience a simulated suborbital space flight.

Our instructor, Glenn King, complete with military-style short hair, has introduced himself and now it's the turn of his pupils.



Richard Branson in the cockpit of the space flight simulator

King is a former jet pilot and US Special Forces HALO (high-altitude, low-opening) skydiving instructor, with 1,200 jumps to his name.

Beside him is a lugubrious-looking doctor who will be monitoring our hearts with an electrocardiogram during the flight.

"I'm here to ensure you have a safe day," he says solemnly. "But if you have an unsafe day, we can handle that as well."

This is the "academic" part of today's programme – a crash course in the effects of G-force.

During today's "flight" in the £15 million centrifuge chamber, we will be subjected to a maximum of 6G.

King explains that high G-forces cause blood to pool in your lower extremities, depriving the brain of oxygen.

This can result in G-loc – loss of consciousness.

"Just enjoy yourself," he says.

"You'll feel your face pulling and your voice will change – but that's all normal.

"Try touching your nose. But be careful not to poke yourself in the eye, because at 6G your hand is six times heavier."

We troop upstairs to a viewing room above the chamber while Branson takes his place in the gondola at the end of a 25ft-long rotating steel arm.

Settling into the seat, he looks nervous.

He runs his hand through his hair and chews his lower lip. A "launch attendant" tightens his straps, clips a pulse oximeter on to his index finger and gives him a final good-luck pat on the shoulder before closing the metal door with a resounding clunk.

Branson is now alone in the cockpit. He's still chatting and cracking jokes but beneath the trademark grin his teeth are gritted.

There's a mild jolt as the 4,000hp engine whirs into action, and then a synthetic-sounding female voice comes over the intercom: "Release from White KnightTwo begins in five… four… three… two… one."

The cockpit lurches forward. "OK, Richard, you're in flight at 50,000ft,~" says King. "Enjoy your ride."

The massive steel arm begins its sweep round the chamber, and Branson's body is pinned back into the seat, his mouth pulled into a taut grimace.

As his vocal cords are pushed against his spine, his voice sounds strangled. But this doesn't stop him breaking into a huge grin. "Yes!" he shouts. "We're going to space!"

Then it's my turn. I'm taken into a medical room, where the doctor takes my pulse before attaching ECG pads to my chest.

On the way to the chamber I keep telling myself there's nothing to worry about but I have to admit I am nervous.

As I'm strapped into the pod, a familiar voice comes over the intercom. "It's Richard here. I just wanted to wish you luck. Have a great trip."

The gondola then pitches forward and I'm off. The initial "ascent" lasts 70 seconds and feels like the most intense curve of a truly gut-churning roller-coaster.

I find myself grimacing involuntarily and my chest feels as if it has a heavy weight pressing on it.

I concentrate on pushing down with my feet and tensing my legs as I have been taught.

Thankfully, before I know it the worst is over and I'm able to relax and enjoy the ride.

The most surprising thing are the visuals.

With three screens in front of you and various cool-looking dials, you really do feel like you're in a spaceship.

The rear-view screen is especially impressive – I watch the coast of southern California vanishing behind me before everything suddenly goes quiet and black and I'm in space.

On the way down, the feeling is even more bizarre.

My cheeks are pulled back and it feels as if a hippo is sitting on my lap.

But it's only a minor discomfort, and by concentrating on my breathing I'm able to relax and enjoy the weirdness of it all.

I have experienced a simulation of space travel, but within two years, customers will be doing it for real on Branson's space-tourism venture.

Two hundred people have already signed up to go into space with Virgin Galactic.

Those who have stumped up the $200,000 (£100,000) for the first 100 seats will have a three-hour round trip and join a seriously exclusive club.

The vessel, SpaceShipTwo, will not be able to achieve orbit but will carry passengers on brief ballistic arcs outside the atmosphere, 68 miles above Earth.

There they will experience four minutes of weightlessness, the total silence of space and one hell of a view.

Unclipping their seatbelts and floating around the cabin, the "tourists" will be surrounded by the darkness of space but able to see the curvature of the Earth and 1,000 miles in any direction.

So from the north of Scotland you could see Iceland, the Norwegian fjords and the length of Britain.

The experience will be brief.

The "slingshot" method means the craft skims the edge of space then falls back.

The spacecraft will pass back into the atmosphere, gliding to Earth and making a normal runway landing.

On the inaugural flight, Branson has decided to take his family – his parents, Eve, 83, and Ted, 91, his daughter Holly, 26, and his son, Sam.

The final seat will be occupied by aerospace engineer Burt Rutan, who designed Virgin Galactic's prototype spacecraft.

It's not every day you see a knight of the realm, a man with a personal fortune of £4 billion, standing before you wearing only socks, pants and a grey vest.

But then again, Sir Richard Branson is no ordinary multi-billionaire.

It's Sunday night and he's just flown into Philadelphia from Necker Island (the 74-acre private retreat in the British Virgin Islands that he bought for £180,000 in 1978) and come straight to the hotel room for his Live photo-shoot.

With David Bowie's Space Oddity playing in the background, the photographer gestures to the space suit we've provided and asks hesitantly, "We were wondering if you'd wear this, Richard."

Branson starts unbuckling his belt…

We'd been warned that he was tired, but you wouldn't know it.

The veteran of thousands of photo-shoots, he gets to work without fuss.

"Can we have you smiling, please, Richard?"

"It's a lot easier when there's a pretty girl behind you," he says, grinning cheekily at the make-up artist, the first of a succession of minor flirtations he conducts with several attractive females in the vicinity.

Branson is an old-school ladies' man. If it moves he will flirt with it, even though he has been with his wife, Joan, for more than 30 years.

Although you wouldn't know it at the time, he confesses later that he felt uneasy about donning the space suit.

He is no stranger to dressing up for the cause but this time he thinks the product is dramatic enough without him needing to try too hard.

He's also aware of claims by some that he is a chancer who survives on publicity stunts.

"I think we can be pretty cool about this one," he says over dinner that evening.

"I think it will promote itself. Once we unveil what the spaceship looks like, it's so breathtaking it'll sell itself."

This uncharacteristic coyness could also be the result of a nasty scare six weeks ago when Branson jumped off the 407ft Palms Hotel in Las Vegas in a parachute harness to promote the launch of his no-frills US airline Virgin America.

Instead of gliding smoothly to the ground, he smashed into the side of the building.

When I ask him if he still considers himself an adrenaline junkie, he replies: "Was I ever an adrenaline junkie? Maybe I was. Well, having nearly killed myself when I jumped off that building, I guess not any more.

"I hit the building once, fortunately on my backside. Then I hit it again, and the second time I thought, “****, I've broken my back.”

"When I got to the bottom I felt like a rag doll. I had no idea what damage I'd done. Fortunately, it was mainly just to my ego."

Branson may have a reputation as a daredevil but he needs to play that down over the next couple of years.

Convincing the public that you can safely transport them beyond the Earth's atmosphere in a massive firework is a lot harder if people think of you as someone who has a habit of crashing into things.

As things stand, there is no insurance available to Virgin Galactic's customers, although companies are looking into it.

Because space tourism is in its infancy, underwriters are still assessing the risks involved.

But Branson is keen to stress that his latest endeavour is the opposite of an adrenaline ride.

"Virgin Galactic is all about making space travel comfortable and safe," he says.

"That's the only way we're going to pull it off.

"It's potentially like being at the beginning of transatlantic air travel. Those flights were very expensive in the Twenties.

"But after 20 or 30 years most people had a chance of experiencing it once in their lives.

"It's our aim to get the price down to a level where people can think, “Am I going to go to Australia on holiday – or am I going to go into space?”"

Will Whitehorn – president of Virgin Galactic and one of Branson's most trusted consiglieri – claims that making Virgin Galactic a profitable business will take about three years of flying.

"Our business plan depends on us taking up about 40,000 people in ten years.

"But if we're successful in filling all the flights, we'll be profitable within three years.

"Once we've achieved that we can start to bring down the price.

"Our ambition is to begin reducing the price by year five so that by the end of a ten-year programme the cost in today's money will be about $75,000 (£38,000). At that point the market will grow exponentially."

Whitehorn dimisses the suggestion that space tourism already exists in the form of Space Adventures, a company that will arrange a stay on the International Space Station – assuming you have £10 million and nine months of your life to spare.

"Space Adventures allows people to join a Russian mission as private individuals – for a large fee," says Whitehorn. "That's not tourism."

The long-term plan is for Virgin Galactic's space craft, SpaceShipTwo, to be able to take off from any number of locations.

It is already planning flights from Kiruna in northern Sweden, 60 miles north of the Arctic Circle, which they hope will be able to travel through the aurora borealis.

"Nobody knows what that looks like from inside," says Whitehorn.

"Although people have fired test rockets underneath it and the Space Shuttle has photographed it from above, no human being has actually been through the aurora borealis.

"We imagine it will look very ethereal, like a mist of ionised particles."

But environmentalists are far from excited by the prospect.

Friends of the Earth has branded Virgin Galactic's plans "elitist and irresponsible".

Whitehorn counters that the CO2 emissions per passenger for a suborbital space trip will be 25 per cent lower than a return flight from London to New York.

"The carbon-composite structure of WhiteKnightTwo [the mothership that carries the spacecraft up to 50,000ft] is extremely light and therefore very efficient," he says.

"It has the wingspan of a Boeing 757 but you can stand at one end and lift it."

Branson himself is a relatively new convert to the environmental cause.

Formerly a climate-change sceptic, his Damascene moment occurred when Al Gore popped round for dinner and gave him a two-hour lecture.

Since then Branson has been filled with evangelical zeal.

In 2006, as part of the Clinton Global Initiative, he pledged to direct all the profits from Virgin's transport sectors, including Virgin Atlantic – an estimated £1.5 billion over ten years – to Virgin Fuels, dedicated to developing alternative, environmentally friendly fuel sources.

But it can't be easy being an environmentalist when you own an airline; life must have been much simpler before the scales were lifted from his eyes.

"Yes, much simpler" he agrees.

Branson has also set up the Virgin Earth Challenge, which is offering a $25 million prize to anyone who comes up with a viable means of extracting CO2 out of the atmosphere.

"Every single scientific institution in the world should be working on nothing else," he says. "It's that critical."

As well as being a very public sop for his conscience, if the prize does result in a breakthrough then Branson will be perfectly placed to market it and earn a handsome profit, while at the same time coming across as the saviour of the planet.

He's quick to admit that "doing good" and "earning shedloads of cash" don't have to be mutually exclusive.

"You have to have a passion and believe you can create something you're really proud of," he says.

"But the chances are that, if it follows those criteria, an enormous number of people will be as interested and excited as you are and therefore it's likely you'll be able to pay your bills."

The next morning, Branson's press officer calls at 6:45am. "Richard is having breakfast and wondered if you'd like to join him."

Branson is waiting in the hotel restaurant in an open-necked white linen shirt. His attitude to fashion is famously laid-back.

He was once photographed wearing shoes that didn't match, and his old British Airways sparring partner Lord King sneeringly referred to him as "the grinning pullover".

His clothes today (brown jacket and jeans) are smart enough but his shoes (battered black slip-ons) look distinctly high-street.

Still, it's a step up from the early days of Virgin, when he would hold meetings with his Coutts & Co bank manager barefoot.

They once told him that, if he ever turned up wearing shoes, they knew he was after a really big loan.

Thirty-seven years on, there's still a bit of the barefoot hippy about him, even though that's at odds with running 250 companies with a combined turnover of £10 billion.

It's part of the Branson enigma. Whitehorn describes him as "ruthlessly capitalist in business but socially communist".

For the next hour, until it's time to depart for the Nastar centre, we talk about his hopes for Virgin Galactic.

At the start, Branson is surprisingly nervous and inarticulate, his speech peppered with ums, ahs and unfinished sentences, as if he gets bored with what he's saying before he's finished saying it.

He stares down into his tea, tugs nervously at his napkin and fiddles with his signet ring (worn unconventionally on the fourth finger rather than the little finger). But after a few minutes he relaxes.

His phone rings – he must be the only person in the world who still has the original Nokia ringtone – and he has a brief conversation during which he asks:

"Have you been to see the Bank of England yet?" No prizes for guessing what they're talking about.

Virgin Galactic may be the main focus today, but there is also the little matter of trying to buy a bank to be getting on with.

Are you in the middle of Northern Rock negotiations, I ask when he comes off the phone.

"Yes," he says.

"It's certainly the most complicated deal we've ever done and we're crossing our fingers it'll all get sorted soon." The conversation returns to Virgin Galactic.

Back on safer territory, Branson visibly relaxes.

He describes how in 1991 he registered the name Virgin Galactic "just for fun, because I loved the name".

But at the same time he set himself the task of meeting all the scientists who might be capable of building a re-usable space ship.

"I met some wonderful, weird people," he says.

"The best way of going into any new business is to be bold and get out there and try to make sure that if there's any breakthrough you're there for it.

"The same applies for our clean-fuel business.

"We've put ourselves up as the company that's going to come up with an alternative fuel, so anybody who does come up with an idea is likely to come to Virgin. The same applied to space travel."

So how much will it cost him? So far, Virgin has spent about £35 million, though by the time it starts making test flights it will have invested more than £50 million.

To bring the programme to commercial viability will involve a total investment of about £125 million – which sounds remarkably low when you consider that Nasa's annual budget is about £8 billion.

But will there be enough people who can afford the experience – and who feel excited enough about what is such a brief thrill – for Virgin to make money out of the venture?

"Yes," he says.

"And the dollar's gone down about 35 per cent since we set the price. So it's a great bargain for British people!

"No, seriously, there are certainly people who could afford it at that level but, obviously, to get hundreds of thousands to be able to afford it, we've got to get the price down.

"That's going to be the challenge over the next ten years.

"I've basically led my life on the basis that saying yes is a lot more fun than saying no. It's led me into some very interesting situations."

Nonetheless, Branson must be nervous. All it takes is one major setback, one unfortunate incident, and the business will be dead in the water.

"If you're pioneering something as large and exciting as this, you have to accept there are going to be knock-backs," he says.

"In attempting to go around the world in a balloon I ended up having to be pulled out of the sea five times by helicopter, so I'm not the sort of person who gives up easily.

"But because SpaceShipOne has proved it is possible to go to space and return safely three times, we know this is do-able.

"And we've got the best rocket scientists working on it. Yes, there will be horrible hiccups along the way but hopefully not too many. I'm convinced we can succeed."

He looks up, suddenly filled with visionary zeal. "I really believe we're at the birth of something big," he says. "This is just the beginning.

"We're starting with suborbital flights, and then we'll move on to orbital flights, then in time I'd hope to see a Virgin hotel just off the Moon where we can set up small spaceships that can be programmed to take guests round the Moon using the Moon's gravity."

So, in his mind's eye, does he imagine sexy, Barbarella-style flight attendants in Virgin uniform, floating around the cabin? "I have no problem fantasising about that at all," he chuckles.

"The Spaceport is going to be the sexiest building on Earth. The spaceship is going to be the sexiest spaceship ever built.

"The mothership is going to be the sexiest mothership. And yes, we may well have crew on board who will be reminiscent of Barbarella…

"There may even be cabin crew on the spaceship. It's not beyond the realms of possibility – and we've got lots of girls who've already put their hands up and said they'd love to do it."

While Virgin Galactic's job for now is simply to get punters to and from space safely, it is also researching other possibilities for the future.

Branson believes the WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo system could be used as a super-fast method of travel.

"At present the Virgin Galactic flights are suborbital," he says.

"But if we could make a bigger SpaceShipTwo, with more power on the rocket motor, we could take people beyond the Earth's atmosphere, and transport people in space. New York to Sydney could be completed in two-and-a-half hours rather than the 26 hours it now takes."

Sceptics have poured scorn on this idea, arguing that the speed necessary to punch right out of the atmosphere and reach orbit would be 17,500mph, while SpaceShipTwo's top speed is 3,500mph. But Branson is unconcerned.

Part of the secret of his success is his unflinching optimism. He never believes things will go wrong until he's dangling from the rescue helicopter rope or being lowered down the side of a building.

Branson doesn't think he's part of a space race, but there is an element of national pride at play.

"For a British company to be the one offering the world flights into space would in itself be fantastic.

"I think it can be a successful business.

"The fact that we've already got $30 million in deposits in the bank indicates that it can. And 80,000 people have already expressed an interest via the website."

On a final note, I ask him what it is about space that inspires him, 38 years after he watched the Moon landing on his fuzzy black-and-white TV in a squat in Notting Hill.

"Everything," he says. "The view, the weightlessness, the sheer majesty of it. I love to do things I've never done before. It's certainly the biggest thing Virgin's ever done – and it's my biggest adventure." Visit virgingalactic.com