Skip to main content

Virgin Galactic video showcases its pricey space tourism service

Virgin Galactic has offered the most detailed look yet at its space tourism flight experience.

Spaceflight With Virgin Galactic

In a dramatic four-minute video released on Sunday, August 15, the company led by billionaire businessman Richard Branson showed off what passengers on its six-seat Unity spaceplane will experience when its space tourism service launches in 2022.

Recommended Videos

Blending animation with footage captured from recent flights, the video takes us through the various stages of the flight, including take-off, release from the carrier aircraft at 50,000 feet, the rocket ride to the edge of space, the views of Earth and a short period of weightlessness at around 282,000 feet, and the flight back to base. The ride from take-off to touchdown lasts around one hour.

Around 600 people are already in line to take the space tourism trip after forking out $250,000 for a seat during the first phase of ticket sales several years ago. Earlier this month, the company announced that from here on in, those wanting to experience Virgin Galactic’s space tourism service will have to pay $450,000 for a seat. Besides rich folk, the flights will also carry researchers keen to conduct experiments in microgravity conditions that last only a few minutes.

The release of Virgin Galactic’s video comes just over a month after Branson took part in the first fully crewed Unity flight that also offered a glimpse at what paying passengers can expect. He later described the experience as “just magical.”

Virgin Galactic isn’t the only one prepping the launch of a space tourism service. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos recently flew to the edge of space aboard a suborbital New Shepard rocket operated by his Blue Origin spaceflight company ahead of a commercial service that could start offering trips next year.

And SpaceX, led by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, is planning more sophisticated orbital tourism flights, with the first one set to launch aboard a Falcon 9 rocket next month.

While some have criticized the recent endeavors of Branson and Bezos as a big waste of money, both are adamant that their proposed space tourism services will help to create new industries, advance science, and inspire a new generation of scientists and researchers.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
SpaceX preps the mighty Starship rocket for its 8th flight test
SpaceX's Super Heavy booster during a ground-based engine test.

Activity at SpaceX’s Starbase site in Boca Chica, Texas, suggests that the spaceflight company is moving rapidly toward the eighth test of its mighty Starship rocket, which comprises the first-stage Super Heavy booster and the upper-stage Starship spacecraft.

SpaceX has released two sets of images from the site in recent days, the first one showing the Super Heavy booster being transported to the launchpad:

Read more
SpaceX won’t be launching its big Starship test flight today after all
SpaceX's Super Heavy booster on the launchpad ahead of the Starship's seventh test flight.

Space watchers had been gearing up for an exciting evening tonight as SpaceX was set to launch its mighty Starship on its seventh test flight to date. The hope was to launch the massive rocket and have it deploy a payload for the first time, as well as facing the daunting challenge of trying to catch the rocket's Super Heavy Booster at the launch tower in Boca Chica, Texas.

However, now the test flight has been pushed back by one day due to weather conditions. The launch had been scheduled for tonight, Wednesday January 15, but SpaceX announced it would delay the flight until 5 p.m. ET on Thursday, January 16 with a 60-minute launch window. Though rockets can typically handle some adverse weather conditions such as winds and rain, high winds or the possibility of lightning strikes could cause problems for delicate electronics, so launches generally wait for clear conditions.

Read more
SpaceX reveals date for the seventh flight of its Starship megarocket
The Super Heavy booster's Raptor engines powering the Starship's launch on November 19, 2024.

SpaceX is targeting Monday, January 13, for the seventh test flight of its Starship megarocket.

The 120-meter-vehicle will lift off from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, as it did on its six previous test flights.

Read more