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Thousands sign up for space flights
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-10-22 20:53
"Star Trek" star William Shatner and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Dave
Navarro are among thousands who want to fly on Virgin's proposed commercial
space flights, company chief Richard Branson said Friday.
Branson said more than 7,000 people had registered their willingness to pay
the 115,000 pound (US$210,000) fare for the service, which promises to send
passengers 70 miles (110 kilometers) above the Earth.
Speaking from California's Mojave desert, Branson told Britain's Press
Association news agency there had been "tremendous take-up" of the idea since he
announced it last month.
"We are extremely pleased because it just means in a sense that the gamble we
took seems to have paid off," he said.
Branson, 54, said he had committed 60 million pounds (US$110 million, 87
million) toward spaceships and ground infrastructure for the new service, Virgin
Galactic. He also plans to spend up to 14 million pounds (US$26 million, 20
million) to license the technology of SpaceShipOne, the rocket-plane that made
two successful suborbital space flights earlier this month to capture the US$10
million Ansari X Prize.
Virgin hoped to offer flights - lasting about 3 1/2 hours including six
minutes of weightlessness - by 2008.
Branson said he would go on the first flight, along with family members
including his father, now 86.
"My dad has put his hand up and will be 90 at the time, my kids definitely
want to come and if there is room for my mum she will come as well," Branson
told PA.
But he said his wife Joan "will have her feet firmly on the ground, I
suspect, trying to encourage the kids to stay on the ground."
Branson is one of Britain's best known and most colorful entrepreneurs. His
Virgin Group began as a record label, and now sells everything from soft drinks
to bridal gowns, and even runs a train service and mobile phone
network.
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