GoKawiilNearly two years since Virgin Galactic's last space flight, the company will once again take regular citizens up into space -- regular citizens who have an extra $750,000, that is. It began accepting online reservations on Monday, with a price tag substantially higher than the $600,000 it charged for trips in 2023.
The next expeditions will take place aboard the company's new Delta Class craft, which can hold six passengers (up from four) and can fly twice per week. Virgin Galactic said it will test the new ship this summer and will begin commercial trips in the fall. The first flights will be for research to gather data for how the ship performs, and then passenger flights will begin 6 to 8 weeks after those research expeditions, the company said.
If all goes as planned, the first nonresearch passengers could be flying into space before the end of the year, the company said.
The company will sell 50 tickets at $750,000 each, then pause sales after all are sold. The company will "step our pricing up as we go" when sales resume, CEO Michael Colglazier said during the company's earnings call earlier this week. He said they have not settled on future ticket prices.
A representative for Virgin Galactic told CNET that the company will not announce how many of those 50 tickets have been sold so far or who the customers are.
Lots of folks are waiting
Virgin Galactic won't only be taking up new customers to space. There is a backlog of 675 people, who the company calls their "founding astronauts" or "future astronauts" -- people who paid deposits as long as a decade ago for future flights. Because they paid years ago, their trip costs will be much lower than those of people buying tickets now.
Future flights could include both new customers and these founding astronauts from that backlog.
Virgin Galactic's goal, Colglazier said, is to take 10 trips per month by 2027. That would be about 60 passengers per month.
A substantial investment has been made in space tourism, albeit by a handful of companies, since engineer and entrepreneur Dennis Tito became the first "space tourist" in 2001. Virgin Galactic has taken 23 customers into space, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin has flown 98, and Elon Musk's SpaceX has taken 20. Axiom Space and Space Adventures -- the pioneering company that took Tito up -- have taken several customers to the International Space Station.
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