IANS
New York, Jan 24: SpaceShipTwo is an air-launched vehicle designed to carry six passengers and two pilots to sub-orbital space and back.
The feisty founder of Virgin Group Richard Branson unveiled here on Wednesday a model of the spacecraft that he hopes will usher in organised space tourism as early as next year.
"Two thousand and eight really will be the year of the spaceship," Branson said unveiling a scale model of the new craft at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. He added that his SpaceShipTwo would start testing later this year.
SpaceShipTwo is an air-launched vehicle designed to carry six passengers and two pilots to sub-orbital space and back. It is based on Bill Rutan's SpaceShipOne, a piloted and reusable spacecraft that won the $10-million Ansari X Prize for sub-orbital space flight in 2004.
Sub-orbital flight is the briefest form of space travel, where the craft technically reaches space - about 100 km above sea level - but then falls back to earth without completing a revolution of the planet.
Branson's Virgin Galactic is charging $200,000 for the ultimate thrilling ride lasting about two hours, with about 4.5 minutes of weightlessness. It already has 200 people signed up, including physicist Stephen Hawking and former soap star Victoria Principal.
About half of Virgin's reserved passengers had the first glimpse of the spacecraft's design at the unveiling. The design reminded one of them of the 1960s TV series "Thunderbirds" with its futuristic looking aircraft.
Agreeing that the price tag is too forbidding for a majority of people, Branson said, "Within five years of launching, I would hope the price would come down fairly."
A launching pad for the spacecraft is to be built in New Mexico.
Branson and Rutan have formed The Spaceship Company that hopes to build at least 40 SpaceShipTwos and 15 WhiteNightTwo carriers over the next 12 years.
Each spacecraft is designed to fly twice a day, with the carriers capable of up to four daily launches. Over 12 years, more than 100,000 people could fly to sub-orbital space aboard the vehicles, Rutan said.
Virgin Galactic is one of several contenders in the commercial space race. The budding sector is led by Space Adventures, based in Virginia, which in 2001 put US businessman Dennis Tito on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft headed for the International Space Station for a reported $20 million.