Space - the final package tour

Go Niche:WHILE SOME of us are still pondering whether or not to go to France again, 400 more adventurous souls have already signed up to go into space.

Although their launch date has yet to be announced, Richard Branson’s originally daft-sounding Virgin Galactic space tourism programme has been hitting all its milestones.

It recently inaugurated the spaceway (a runway for spacecraft) at its spaceport, near the appropriately sci-fi-sounding town of Truth or Consequences in New Mexico.

Once testing is complete and approval received from the appropriate authorities, Branson will be sending his passengers, each of whom is paying $200,000 (€147,000) for the privilege, into orbit six at a time.

Basically, they get powered up to 50,000ft by a larger craft travelling at a speed of 3,000mph and then, though it’s probably not the technical term, sort of slung into space.

Once out in the final frontier, passengers will be able to unbuckle their seatbelts and float around the cabin, peering out windows and somersaulting to their heart’s delight before simply popping back through the atmosphere and gliding down to earth.

It only sounds far-fetched until you check out the footage on the Virgin Galactic website and see just how well the test flights have gone.

And the fact is, you don’t have to pay your $200,000 (€147,000) up front. Instead you get to join in what must be one of the most exciting initiatives open to non-scientists with a deposit of just $20,000 (€14,600).

For that you get invited to all sorts of rocket-related media events plus space camps at Branson’s Caribbean Island Necker and his private game reserve in South Africa.

When you look at it that way, it’s not outlandish money for what promises to be, even without the space bit, an out of this world adventure.

• virgingalactic.com