British Billionaire Sir Richard Branson Unveils Space-Tourism Mothership

Sir Richard Branson showcased "White Knight Two," a key piece of his fledgling commercial space program. The public showing was the first concrete evidence of progress since the Rutan-designed SpaceShipOne became the first private, manned rocket to reach space in 2004. After the groundbreaking flights, Rutan and Branson partnered to commercialize on the success. Branson dubbed the venture Virgin Galactic. Don't get too excited yet about paying 200,000 for a ticket to board this spacecraft. There are still significant hurdles before WK2 takes off for its first official commercial flight. In the history of spaceflight, most astronauts have been in government programs. In recent years, a handful of wealthy people have paid about $20 million each to ride Russian rockets to the international space station. Virgin Galactic envisions a future where space voyages will become as common as airplane travel, it wants to fly 500 people into space in the first year. If it succeeds, that would be on par with the same number of people who have gone up in 45 years of space travel. So far, more than 250 wannabe astronauts have paid the full amount or put down a deposit to fly with Virgin Galactic, but when they will float in zero gravity is unknown. Rutan has declined to release a schedule. Virgin Galactic stopped predicting after it said in a 2004 press release that flights could begin in 2007.