As if his plan for global domination weren’t enough, Virgin Group honcho Richard Branson is taking to space with his new commercial spacecraft, SpaceShipTwo, which will grant six paying customers at a time the experience of weightlessness for six minutes. –KA

Check out Virgin Galactic’s Web site here.

BBC:

SS1 became the world’s first private spaceship with a series of high-altitude flights in 2004.

Its successor, however, is twice as large, measuring 18m (60ft) in length. And whereas SpaceShipOne only had a single pilot (and the ballast equivalent of two passengers), SS2 will have a crew of two and room for six passengers.

“This is a very big space ship so you have got a lot of room to float around, lots of windows to looks out,” the AFP news agency quoted Sir Richard as saying.

About 300 individuals are reported to have signed up for a flight. They are all willing to pay about $200,000 (£121,000) for the privilege of experiencing six minutes of weightlessness during what will be a two-hour end-to-end flight.

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