Space tourism: target 2018

This is the great return of Virgin Galactic in space. Richard Branson, CEO of Virgin Group, announced the resumption of the test program, delayed by the SpaceShipTwo crash in October 2014. The suborbital shuttle disintegrated in flight, resulting in the tragic death of co-pilot Michael Alsbury.

Virgin Galactic had already resumed its flight tests in December 2016 with the upgraded version of SpaceShipTwo, the VSS Unity which made its entry into the atmosphere a few months ago. By taking over the tests, Richard Branson does not lose sight of his initial objective: to propose commercial flights in space for individuals. The CEO would like to be part of the first trip in the middle of next year and hopes that the first flight of space tourism will be at the end of 2018.

The British company is not alone in wanting to offer this kind of space travel to its customers. Blue Origin by Jeff Bezos and Space X by Elon Musk rely on reusable rockets to reduce the cost of future space travel. More than 700 customers would have already booked to be part of Virgin Galactic's first trip into space.