Citizens Book Tickets to Moon

Would-be astronauts fund growth industry

A citizen spaceflight company has two passengers willing to pay $100 million each for a flight around the moon. Tickets aboard Virgin’s future suborbital flights are flying out the door. The civilian aeronautics industry finds itself better funded every day, as would-be astronauts and  backers alike are rushing to get on board, the Christian Science Monitor reports.

Angel investors with space obsessions are lining up to fund "reusable-rocket"  startups, and NASA recently split $500 million between two. The competition for the $2-million X prize— awarded to the company that builds the best prototype of a lunar lander—will be held in New Mexico in October. (More Virgin Galactic stories.)

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