LONDON (AP)
-- Designer Philippe Starck, former soap star Victoria Principal and ''Superman
Returns'' director Bryan Singer have booked their flights for tourist trips in
outer space, an official from the company selling the galactic voyage said
Monday.
Virgin
Galactic, a Virgin Group company, has sold some 200 tickets to passengers for
suborbital flights, starting in 2008, said Will Whitehorn, the company's
president.
It has
collected 8.5 million pounds (US$15.6 million, euro12.4 million) in deposits
for the flights that cost 109,000 pounds (US$200,000, euro158,000).
"Right
now we're headed right on schedule," Whitehorn said. "Things are
looking good from our perspective."
The venture
by Virgin Group, owned by British billionaire Richard Branson, is building five
spaceships and two airplanes by 2010.
Travelers
will take seats in a spaceship that will be attached to a separate airplane.
Following takeoff, the spaceship detaches itself from the plane at about 15,000
meters (49,000 feet) from the ground.
It then
enters suborbital space for about 15 minutes _ including five minutes of
weightlessness.
After its
journey into space _ at 87 miles (140 kilometers) above Earth, it returns to
the ground.
The total
flight-time is about 2 hours and 15 minutes, and the voyages will initially
launch from the Mojave Desert near Los Angeles before relocating to a permanent
base in New Mexico in 2010.
Virgin
Galactic is one of many companies venturing into space travel. Space
Adventures, a Vienna, Virginia-based company, has already sent three people on
a Russian Soyez rocket to the International Space Station, some 220 miles (360
kilometers) from Earth. Each trip costs 10.9 million pounds (US$20 million,
15.8 million euros).
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