Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic is now offering tickets for space travel to the general public—at least that portion of the general public with $450,000 available to buy a 90-minute ride to space after two days' training.
The terms are stiff: $150,000 now, and the rest by the time of the flight, with $25,000 of the down payment not refundable. You may have to wait a while for your flight once flights begin in October: 600 reservations were made a few years ago at the original $250,000 price, and another hundred were sold more recently at $450,000. The company says it expects to have sold a thousand tickets by the time flights start.
For that money, passengers get the two-day training and a flight that includes at least five minutes of weightlessness.
If the price seems too steep, by the way, there's another way into space. If you have two million Virgin Points, you can enter a lottery to win a seat; you only have to redeem the points if you win the lottery.
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