Virgin Galactic, the spaceship division of Virgin Group, unveiled it’s first spacecraft back on January 23rd. Construction is nearly complete and it will soon begin the mandatory 50 test flights for safety. Nevertheless, flights are being booked for 2009 at 200 large per, which is quite a lot of large for a 2.5 sub orbital flight. The price drops to 100 large after the first 100 reservations and Richard Branson promises to drop the price to 20K eventually.
That puts it in the realm of possibility for the Average Joe. Definitely, ‘Once in a Lifetime’, but still possible. People save over the course of several years to have a really fun blowout vacation on a fancy cruise ship in the Caribbean or to travel all over Europe for two months, why not this? But is the ROI on a 2.5 hour suborbital flight worth it? While I would like to experience such a flight, if I’m going to drop 20K, I’d want my ROI to be a bit better than 8000K/hour. That’s a hell of a lot of gelato in Italy is all I’m saying.
Then again, if you’ve got the frequent flyer miles, why the hell not:
Virgin Galactic claims up to 200 people have already booked seats on the sub-orbital craft through 2009. Though the initial ticket price is $200,000, a British businessman named Alan Watts was able to redeem two million frequent flier miles for a 2009 flight.