Royalty, actors sign up for Virgin space flights

FARNBOROUGH, UK - Former soap star Victoria Principal, designer Philippe Starck and a senior member of an unidentified royal family have all bought tickets for the world's first tourist space flights planned for 2008.

Virgin Group, owned by billionaire businessman and part-time daredevil Richard Branson, has said it is on track to launch the sub-orbital flights for the year after next and has sold tickets to its first 150 passengers.

Its commercial spaceline, called Virgin Galactic, said in a news conference at the Farnborough International Airshow near London that it had collected US$15.6 million ($25 million) in deposits for the flights which cost US$200,000 per ticket.

Virgin Galactic President Will Whitehorn told reporters that 300 potential passengers were going through a detailed reservation process while 60,000 had registered interest via the venture's website.

Bryan Singer, the director of hit film Superman Returns, has also signed up.

Virgin may have been the inspiration for a scene in Singer's movie which features a sub-orbital spacecraft, though that vessel's maiden flight almost ends in disaster when an electrical failure sends it hurtling into a baseball stadium.

Design work on the Virgin's SpaceShipTwo spacecraft was expected to be completed next year.

"Everything is progressing on time and on budget. I think we will be pulling it out of the hanger next summer," Whitehorn told reporters.

The spacecraft to be used by Virgin is based on SpaceShipOne, which in 2004 won the US$10 million Ansari X prize offered to the first private organisation to launch a reusable manned spacecraft into space twice within two weeks.

Virgin is building five models of SpaceShipTwo, a larger version.

The craft is attached to a larger plane - White Knight Two - for take-off from the ground, and then detaches at 50,000 feet from the carrier aircraft before accelerating rapidly and entering sub-orbital space.

Virgin plans to initially launch the venture from the Mojave Desert near Los Angeles before moving to a permanent base in New Mexico in 2010.

Virgin and the US state of New Mexico announced a new name for the launch base, Spaceport America, on Monday.

Virgin says customers will spend 15 minutes in space, including five minutes of weightlessness.

Branson has said he plans to be on the first commercial Virgin Atlantic flight along with his children and parents - including his 91-year-old father.

The venture has several competitors, including Space Adventures, a U.S.-based company that has already sent three space tourists on a Russian Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station for $20 million each.

- REUTERS