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The trip will allow you to become one of the first 500 people ever to reach earth’s orbit and is pretty much guaranteed to make you the center of attention at the first post-flight party you attend.

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Spaceship You

All you need to know about joining the super-elite ranks of the space tourists.

August/Sept 07 , Page 85

Interested in doing your best imitation of John Glenn? Space Adventures and Virgin Galactic will gladly take your cash in exchange for shooting you 68 miles up. At the moment, Virgin is developing a commercial version of SpaceShipOne, which won the $10 million Ansari X Prize in 2004 for being the first privately funded craft to send someone into sub-orbital space. And Space Adventures has its own sub-orbital vehicle in the works — that is, if you don’t want to go all the way to the International Space Station.

ORBITAL

Space Adventures ($25–5 million per trip) Space Adventures offers two types of International Space Station trips — you can take part in a semi-annual “taxi” mission to the facility or go on a highly customized private mission. You can also participate in a spacewalk (which increases the cost by $15 million). The trip will allow you to become one of the first 500 people ever to reach earth’s orbit (the number stands at about 450 now, so don’t delay) and is pretty much guaranteed to make you the center of attention at the first post-flight party you attend.

SUB-ORBITAL

Virgin Galactic ($200,000 per trip) The first Virgin spaceflights will likely launch (if everything goes as planned) from the Mojave Desert sometime in 2009. Each 2.5-hour jaunt will carry six “astronauts” and a pair of pilots. Every passenger will need to meet a health and fitness requirements, and have 2.5 days’ training and flight preparation before heading aloft. Virgin makes it easy to become a spaceman, offering a “Book Your Flight” link on its virgingalactic.com site. More than 200 people have already reserved slots, with 100 plunking down the full freight to be among the first to fly: $100,000 to $175,000 to be among the first 500 or a $20,000 deposit for any of the flights after that.

Space Adventures ($102,000 per trip) Space Adventures also has its own sub-orbital flight plan in the works (more than 200 people have reserved spots), with two spaceports on the drawing boards in the United Arab Emirates and Singapore. The company has delayed announcing an initial launch date or spacecraft details, preferring to wait until a later stage of development, but it’s already known that each passenger will require four days’ training prior to launch. Reservations can be made through spaceadventures.com.