The space tourism industry is expected to grow rapidly in the forthcoming decade and the Virgin Galactic, an offshoot of London-based Richard Branson's Virgin Group, already has collected about 60 million U.S.Dollars  in deposits for rides that cost 200,000 U.S.Dollars per person.

 

 

Dr. George C. Nield, associate administrator for commercial space transportation of the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States which is expecting to launch space tourism flights said that it is hard to predict the exact date of commencement of those launches, but its very clear that it sgoing to be in the next one or two years.  He has told media personnel in the travel trade that spaceships and rocket planes to carry space travelers beyond the earth’s atmosphere are being constructed and tested. The hope is that commercial flights will be available sometime between 2013 and 2014.

 

 

The commercial voyages will lift passengers about 62 miles above Earth, where they will experience weightlessness and witness the planet from the darkness of near space.

 

 

The American government expects space tourism to become a billion dollar industry within the next 10 years. (niz+)