It’s the stuff of dreams and Hollywood movies. But if Richard Branson has his way, commercial space travel will be a reality by 2008.
A team at Virgin Galactic (the space tourism venture of Branson’s Virgin Group) claim that suborbital space tourism will be possible before the decade is out. We spoke to Virgin Galactic’s Head of Astronaut Relations, Stephen Attenborough, to find out what the first suborbital space travellers can expect.
So what does a Head of Astronaut Relations do?
I joined Virgin Galactic in October 2004. My job is to liaise with the 30,000 members of the public (future astronauts) who have already registered their interest in joining us in 2008 for the world’s first commercial space travel expedition.
How have you sparked renewed interest in space travel?
If you’d asked someone back in the 1960s to predict when commercial space travel would become possible, they’d have said some time in the next decade. In the 1980s the same question would have yielded a ‘never’. The 1960s was a magical period in which huge risks were taken to bring about impossible achievements. It’s no coincidence that our customer base is made up of baby boomers for whom space travel has been a lifelong dream. These people are our pioneers. They will be the first members of public in space.
Virgin Galactic claims that commercial space travel will be possible by 2008. Is this realistic?
Yes. The biggest challenges have already been overcome. The technology works, we have the funding, we have a customer base and we are confident that Washington will be satisfied with the safety measures we have in place. Virgin has an ingrained culture of safety.
The first space travellers will pay over £100,000 for the privilege. Will budget space travel ever be an option?
It is a lot of money. But a lot of people can clearly afford it. The good news is that the people who have already confirmed their interest in paying £100,000 ($200,000) for this once in a lifetime experience will be the very people who bring about budget space travel. We'll be investing this initial output and will gradually see the cost of commercial space travel decrease and become more accessible to the masses.
What will the journey into space be like? Stephen Attenborough tells us...
"Quite spectacular. The spacecraft, Enterprise, will be lifted by a mother ship to 50,000 feet, at which point the rocket motors will kick in and Enterprise will travel vertically at four times the speed of sound. Passengers will see the afternoon sky turn from blue to indigo to mauve to black. This part of the trip will be extremely noisy and exciting. Then the motors will cut out, and passengers will have no physical sense of the phenomenal speed at which they are travelling. Five minutes out of their seats will allow them to experience absolute weightlessness in sub-orbital. The craft will then float down towards home, back into the Earth’s atmosphere and into a glide landing. The experience will last around two and a half hours."
See www.virgingalactic.com for more information.
Learn more about space on Channel 4’s science website.
Image courtesy of Virgin Galactic. Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of third party sites.
