Virgin Galactic Is Selling Tickets To Space And Theyre Ridiculously Expensive

Virgin Galactic Is Selling Tickets To Space, And They’re Ridiculously Expensive

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Virgin Galactic is ready to start taking people to space. Ready to buy a ticket? You just need $450,000. And there’s already a huge waitlist.

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Virgin Galactic Is Selling Tickets To Space And Theyre Ridiculously Expensive

Virgin Galactic is now letting paying customers take a trip to the edge of outer space — but only if they have bottomless pockets. While traveling to space used to be reserved for astronauts at NASA and other organizations, the boom of ‘space tourism’ is quickly changing that. If someone has enough cash to burn, they can pay a private company to take them on the trip of a lifetime.

In 2021 alone, there’s been enormous progress in taking space tourism from a pipedream to reality. On July 11, Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson took a trip on the company’s SpaceShipTwo spaceplane with five other passengers. Blue Origin completed its first human test flight a few days later on July 20. Along with founder Jeff Bezos, that flight also saw 18-year-old Oliver Daemen and 82-year-old Wally Funk becoming the youngest and oldest people in space, respectively. With these successful test flights in the books, companies like Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin are ready to expand these opportunities to anyone with a large enough checkbook.

Looking to be one step ahead of Blue Origin yet again, Virgin Galactic has announced plans to re-open ticket sales for the cool starting price of $450,000 (as first reported on by The Verge). Virgin Galactic had ticket sales open years ago for around $200,000, but ended them in 2014 after the death of a pilot during one of its test flights. Following the successful test flight last month, the company is confident in SpaceShipTwo’s ability to start to be used commercially. It’s encouraging that Virgin Galactic has made considerable advancements in the safety of its operations, but the jump from $200,000 to $450,000 makes an already expensive ticket that much more unattainable.

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Virgin Galactic Already Has A Long Waitlist

Even for someone with that kind of money, it could be a while before Virgin Galactic is ready for them. The company’s confirmed it currently has a backlog of around 600 customers who have already purchased a ticket and are first-in-line. From there, Virgin Galactic will serve the 1,000+ other people who have made $1,000 deposits. Only when those people have taken their flights will Virgin Galactic start letting other folks on board. 1,600 people might not sound like a lot, but SpaceShipTwo can only carry a maximum of eight passengers at a time. In other words, Virgin Galactic has more than 200 flights to make before new customers are attended to.

More pricing details should be revealed soon, but don’t expect any of the options to be more affordable. The $450,000 price secures just a single seat aboard the flight. Virgin Galactic will also offer “multi-seat” packages for couples, friends, and family — in addition to an entirely private flight. Additionally, folks looking to conduct professional astronaut training or microgravity research can buy tickets starting at $600,000 per seat.

It’ll be a long time before space tourism becomes even remotely affordable for everyday people, but this is a step forward in getting to that point. Competition from Blue Origin and other space tourism companies could result in healthy competition that lowers the barrier of entry. Still, it’ll likely be decades before any meaningful price reduction happens. Until then — does anyone have a spare $450,000 they’re willing to lend?

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/virgin-galactic-space-ticket-sales-open-price/

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