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More than six months following its successful flight into space, Virgin Galactic is finally regarding to open ticket sales to the general public. So far, only a handful of wealthy people have been able to compete for one..
Starting Wednesday, February 16, Mr. and Mrs. Everybody will be able to afford a ticket to space aboard a Virgin Galactic spacecraft. It will still have a well-filled wallet since a place on board the carrier VSS Unity costs 450,000 dollars. Interested parties will have to pay the sum of 150,000 dollars to guarantee their seat. They will then have to pay the remaining $300,000 before their flight.
A long queue
If Virgin Galactic officially opens its space flights to the “general public”, the price of a ticket might chill many, as well as the waiting time to board a rocket in the direction of space .
Long before its first successful flight, the company had indeed sold several hundred tickets to investors and other wealthy people. New tickets were sold out followingwards, so today the queue should be particularly long. It is regarding 700 tickets already sold.
However, the fact that Virgin Galactic was grounded for several months due to a manufacturing defect found on the device used for the flights did not help. Several space escapades were planned for the beginning of 2022, but due to this problem – and the particular interest of the authorities in this matter – the company has finally changed its schedule: it will not resume commercial flights until the end of the year. It is difficult to know when “general public” flights will therefore be honored.
The announcement of the company has in any case had a nice effect on its action. It jumped 11% on Wall Street.