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Virgin Galactic
On September 27th, 2004, Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group signed a historic deal with Paul Allen and Burt Rutan of SpaceShipOne to license SpaceShipOne's technology to build the world's first private spaceship to offer commercial flights for the purpose of sub-orbital space tourism. The agreement, not only created a new branch to Branson’s Virgin Empire, Virgin Galactic; it also had Virgin Galactic sponsoring the attempt to claim the X-prize. A week later, on October 4th, SpaceShipOne claimed the ANSARI X-Prize; Virgin Galactic’s system was set to undertake the challenge of developing space tourism. To manufacture launch aircraft, spaceships and support equipment as well as market them to spaceline operators, Sir Richard Branson and Burt Rutan formed a jointly owned company, The Spaceship Company. The company will not only provide five ships (based on SpaceShipOne) and two launch aircraft (with options on further systems) to Virgin Galactic, it will also secure exclusive use of the systems for the first year and a half of commercial passenger operations.
The launch base for Virgin Galactic will be the developing space port in New Mexico; New Mexico, already being the host of the X-Prize Cup, pitched the idea to the President of Virgin Galactic to locate its world's headquarters and Mission Control within the state. The 200 million dollar spaceport will be built in the southern part of New Mexico on a 27 square mile area of state land.
The first flights of the VSS (Virgin Space Ship) Enterprise – still on the drawing board – are planned to begin in 2008, and reservations have started with deposit commitments for the first year of operations. The ticket price has been set at US$200,000 and the minimum, fully refundable deposit to secure the seat on the spaceship is US$20,000. That will buy you a suborbital flight, and approximately 6 minutes of weightlessness with a maximum altitude of over 100km.