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SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Virgin Galactic, billionaire Richard Branson's space travel venture, plans to order five more spaceships and aims to turn a profit in five years from its commercial launch in 2010, an official told Reuters on Thursday.

Prospective space travelers have so far placed deposits totaling more than $31 million for tickets that cost $200,000 each and would give them five minutes in space, said Alex Tai, the firm's group director.

"In the short term, we have firm orders for five spaceships and options for seven ... We believe there is a very strong market," Tai said in an interview at the Singapore Airshow.

About 80,000 people from 120 countries have shown interest in these commercial space flights that are likely to start in 2010. Seriously interested travelers are asked to deposit at least $20,000, according to Virgin Galactic's Web site (http://www.virgingalactic.com).

"It's silly to divide the $200,000 by that 5 minutes. It really is a life-time experience," Tai said.

Virgin, which aims to be the first to take paying passengers into space on a regular basis, will invest $250 million in the space program, Tai said.

He declined to give the cost of each craft or the maker, though some parts will come from Pratt & Whitney, the jet engine unit of United Technologies Corp

Asked when the company would become profitable, Tai said: "I imagine it will be inside the first five years."

Virgin's SpaceShipTwo, unveiled last month and to be tested later this year, will be able to carry 8 people into sub-orbital space. Virgin aims to start with one flight a week before ramping it up to 14 flights a week, Tai said.

For $200,000, Virgin will prepare space travelers over three days for their 2-hour flight beyond Earth's atmosphere that will culminate in five minutes in space. The three-day program will include simulating a zero-gravity environment, showing travelers what it means to accelerate and decelerate quickly, as well as what the Earth looks like from space, Tai said. The spaceship will initially be launched from Mojave, California, but will eventually take off from a space port in New Mexico.

Virgin Galactic is one of several high-profile contenders in the new commercial space race.

Others include Astrium, the space arm of European aerospace firm EADS, Blue Origin, started by Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos, Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX), created by PayPal founder Elon Musk, and Bigelow Aerospace, a venture aimed at creating space hotels, started by hotelier Robert Bigelow.

The leader in the budding sector is Virginia-based Space Adventures, which started the space tourism phenomenon in 2001 when it put U.S. businessman Dennis Tito on a Russian Soyuz craft for a reported $20 million.

(Additional reporting by Koh Gui Qing,

editing by Neil Chatterjee, Valerie Lee)

Virgin Galactic plans more spaceships, R, 21.2.2008,
https://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSSP128348
20080221

Star Trek's Scotty beamed up

in final space voyage

Sun Apr 29, 2007
1:48AM EDT
Reuters
By Steve Shoup

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, New Mexico (Reuters) - Actor James Doohan, who played the starship Enterprise's chief engineer Scotty on "Star Trek," finally made it to space on Saturday as a rocket with some of his ashes was launched in New Mexico.

Remains of the Canadian-born actor, who died two years ago at the age of 85, hurtled to the edge of space aboard a telephone pole-size rocket that blasted off from a desert launching grounds near Truth or Consequences.

Doohan inspired the legendary catch phrase "Beam me up, Scotty" -- even though it was never actually uttered on the popular television show.

Hundreds of spectators clapped, cheered and cried as his ashes roared aloft along with the remains of some 200 other people, including astronaut Gordon Cooper, who first went into space in 1963. Cooper died in 2004 at age 77.

"It was great, it was fun and we want to go again," said Doohan's widow, Wende Doohan, who pressed the launch button with Cooper's widow, Susan Cooper.

The flight was arranged by Houston-based company Space Services Inc. The company charges $495 to send a portion of a person's ashes into suborbital space.

The firm had originally planned to blast Doohan's remains into space two years ago. But the flight was delayed by tests, then by a misfire during a practice launch last year.

During a 15-minute flight, the rocket separated into two parts and returned to Earth on parachutes with the capsules holding the remains. The maximum height reached was 384,000 feet or 72 miles.

Capsules containing the ashes are retrieved, mounted on plaques and given back to relatives.

In 1997, the company blasted the remains of "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry into space.

Crystal Warren saw the remains of her space enthusiast brother-in-law take flight. "He's going home. He's there now. He has wanted to be up there forever," said Warren.

The brief flight by the Spaceloft XL rocket was the first commercial launch from Spaceport America, the world's first commercial spaceport, a $225 million project developed with support from the New Mexico state government.

British tycoon Richard Branson said last year he would use the site as a base for his space tours firm, Virgin Galactic, which plans to blast tourists into space by the end of the decade.

Star Trek's Scotty beamed up in final space voyage,
R,
29.4.2007,
https://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN28352042
20070429

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