Send Yourself to Space... For a Price

Text by Joe Battle

There are many different paths to take to float with the stars, but a majority of them revolve around a wallet that could plug a black hole.

One of the leaders in promoting private space travel is a company known as Space Adventures.  A meager $100 million will “secure” your personal trip to the moon…whenever that again becomes a reality.  So far Space Adventures has had six clients, most famously Anousheh Ansari, co-founder of Telecom Technologies. Her family provided the sponsorship for the Ansari X Prize, which was a major catalyst for making private space travel a reality. The goal of the prize was to break away from government organizations and create a reusable manned spacecraft. In 2004 the SpaceShipOne accomplished just that and the X Prize Foundation delivered the prize money of 10 million dollars. Ansari is one of the trustees on the X Prize Foundation along with PayPal co-founder Elon Musk. Musk is the CEO of Space X, which quite possibly represents the future of private space travel.

But if you want to get to space within the next five years, our 2008 Lifetime Achievement recipient, Sir Richard Branson, is your man. His Virgin Galactic will, for $200,000, take you on a two-and-a-half hour trip to the outskirts of our atmosphere, where you’ll feel weightless. It’s been reported that 300 people have paid a majority of the fee, while 80,000 people have been interested but haven’t yet ponied up the 200,000 clams.

Virgin Galactic is not alone. XCOR aerospace is planning a shorter and less expensive suborbital trip.