space tourism

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Private Firms Hope to Haul NASA's Space Cargo

And US agency wants their help

(Newser) - Hauling crew and equipment between earth and the international space station is expensive work, and NASA is looking to private entrepreneurs to pick up some of the slack, the Washington Post reports. Among the front-runners is Elon Musk, a founder of Paypal, who has seen his three prototype shuttles crash...

Branson's Aircraft: Beyond Space Tourism

Applications include satelites, drones and studying climate change

(Newser) - Though space tourism is an exciting feat in itself, it’s just the beginning of the possibilities for Virgin Galactic’s White Knight Two, the Economist notes. The carbon-composite plane doubles as a spaceship’s first stage, and is capable of launching satellites, transporting replacement engines, and facilitating the study...

Branson Rolls Out Space Plane

Craft could make first commercial flight—at $200K per ticket—by decade's end

(Newser) - At a remote airfield in the Mojave Desert today, Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson unveiled the flagship of his new venture, an aircraft that will carry the first passenger space rocket to its launch height of 48,000 feet, the Los Angeles Times reports. Tickets are going for $200,000-plus,...

Google's Brin Books Flight to Space Station

Company co-founder puts $5M deposit on 2011 launch

(Newser) - Google co-founder Sergey Brin is turning space tourist, plunking down a $5 million deposit with Space Adventures for passage to the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket in 2011, reports the New York Times. Space Adventures is planning to buy two of the three seats aboard the mission,...

Space Tourism Gets New 2-Seater

Calif. company is second aiming to take passengers to new heights

(Newser) - California's XCor Aerospace is jumping aboard the space-tourism bandwagon with a new rocket plane, the Los Angeles Times reports. For $100,000, one passenger at a time will be able to ride the Lynx to 200,000 feet and feel about 90 seconds of weightlessness. With flight tests beginning in...

Space Tours to Northern Lights
Space Tours to Northern Lights

Space Tours to Northern Lights

Virgin Galactic to offer flights into heart of aurora borealis

(Newser) - Virgin Galactic plans to launch sightseeing tours into the heart of the northern lights—a first for humans—within three years. If all goes to plan, passengers willing to pay $200,000 a ticket will board spacecraft from north of the Arctic Circle to head for the edge of space,...

Mojave Spaceport Blast Kills 2
Mojave Spaceport
Blast Kills 2

Mojave Spaceport Blast Kills 2

Four others hurt at company behind first manned rocket

(Newser) - An explosion killed at least two people at a remote desert plant attempting to develop billionaire Richard Branson's space tourism program. The blast at Mojave Air and Space Port was in part of the facility where SpaceShipTwo is being built for Virgin Galactic—to be used for $200,000 trips...

Citizens Book Tickets to Moon
Citizens Book Tickets to Moon

Citizens Book Tickets to Moon

Would-be astronauts fund growth industry

(Newser) - 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...

Stephen Hawking Test-Drives Zero Gravity

(Newser) - Paralyzed super-physicist Stephen Hawking completed a zero-gravity flight off the Florida coast yesterday—floating weightless and free of his wheelchair for 25-second busts. "It was amazing,"  Hawking said after the flight. "Space, here I come!" The American firm normally charges $3,750 for the experience,...

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