Branson reaches for the stars

By CAHAL MILMO


Strapped in, flat on their backs, passengers will accelerate to 4000km/h in just 25 seconds. For no more than five minutes they will float about, 130km above planet Earth. On-board lavatory and in-flight drinks? Not a chance. And the price for this brief excursion? £110,000 ($29,860).

Richard Branson, the master of combining publicity coups with redrawing aviation boundaries, yesterday unveiled his latest project to redefine air travel - the first commercial space flights.

By 2007, the British billionaire plans to offer five wealthy space tourists at a time the chance to take three-hour trips on a fleet of rocket-powered craft that will take them into space but stop short of going into orbit.

Branson announced the venture - to be named Virgin Galactic - after signing a £14 million deal at the weekend to use technology perfected by the California-based team which this year made the first privately funded flight into space with their craft, SpaceShipOne.

Never one to understate his ambitions, Branson said he hoped to add a space hotel to his portfolio within his lifetime and maybe even fly to the moon.

Speaking at the launch of the project at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London, Branson said: "Like so many others, for years I have dreamt of seeing the beauty of our planet from space, experiencing true weightlessness.

"I hope with the launch of Virgin Galactic that, some day, children around the world will wonder why we ever thought that space travel was just a dream we read about in books or watched - with longing - in Hollywood movies."

The attempt will be paid for by Branson and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who also funded SpaceShipOne.

Work will start by the end of the year on VSS (Virgin Space Ship) Enterprise, the first of the new "space liners" to be built with a total investment of £60 million. The craft, whose design has yet to be finalised, will carry a pilot and five passengers, each of whom will be strapped to a flatbed-style seat to avoid the problems of G-forces.

After being carried to a height of 15km by a launch aircraft, the spaceship will fire its rocket for 90 seconds. It will spend five minutes of weightlessness at the height of its trajectory before changing its wing pattern to glide back to its launch site in the Mojave Desert in the southwestern United States. Due to the extra requirements of heat shields and thrusters, the British-funded rocket ship will not enter orbit.

Everyone on board will have a large window from which to enjoy the view, but weight restrictions mean there will be none of the usual in-flight facilities such as a lavatory or a flight attendant.

The spacecraft, hoped to be the first of five, will be built in California at the base of Burt Rutan, who built SpaceShipOne. It was this bulbous, futuristic craft, powered by a mixture of solid rubber propellant and liquid nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, which achieved the first privately funded manned flight into space in June. It flew 100km above the earth using the new low-cost technology.

Rutan, who is already working with Branson on Virgin GlobalFlyer, a jet to fly non-stop around the world, said the pilot of VSS Enterprise would need to do little to direct it to its landing strip.

While insisting his craft would be safe, he said it was only likely to be as safe as early commercial airlines.

"No one is going to be able to claim or guarantee that commercial space operations is going to be as safe as a 747," said Rutan. "Airlines have had seven decades of maturity."

The only previous space tourists have been a handful of billionaires who paid the Russian Government for the privilege.

With plans to build more "space ports", first in Florida, then Australia and Britain, Branson said his plan was to reinvest profits from the early flights to reduce the cost and make space tourism available to a wider market.

- INDEPENDENT