Lift off for all

From our Space Correspondent. Reporting from Earth.

Next year it will be forty years since the Apollo 11 (pictured) landed on the moon. We’ve certainly come a long way since then. In just two years’ time a new concept will be put into practice – space tourism. Yes, you read correctly. In what sounds like some outlandish futuristic sci-fi film plot, Virgin will launch sub-orbital spaceflights to the general public in 2010.

You don’t have to be an astronaut to go to space any more with the launch of the new service. What you do have to have however is money – and quite a lot of it too. One of the first hundred seats will set you back $200,000, but after the first five hundred a deposit of $20,000 will apply. It’s certainly expensive to you or I, but in terms of space travel it’s actually relatively cheap.

Since an astronaut is defined as someone who travels above an altitude of 80-100km, you’ll officially receive your astronaut ‘wings’ after travelling on a Virgin Galactic flight. Passengers will even get six minutes of weightlessness on their flight, and will be allowed to float around the cabin at their will.
It sounds almost too good to be true, but in fact space tourism has been going on for quite a few years already. Space Adventures Ltd. sent American businessman Dennis Tito in 2001 to the International Space Station, reportedly for $20 million. Six others have flown since then.

We may be a long way from any Joe Soaps heading into space, but there’s a list of celebrities queuing up to go on one of Virgin Galactic’s flights. These include Alien star Sigourney Weaver, Paris Hilton, astrophysicist Stephen Hawking and William Shatner. Shatner, who played Captain Kirk in Star Trek, was actually offered a free seat on the inaugural flight, but turned it down saying, “I do want to go up but I need guarantees I’ll definitely come back.”

So how long will it be until ‘low fare spacelines’ start to appear?

Well, let’s just take it one giant leap for mankind at a time…