ANYONE will be able to establish their own space airline 鈥� as long as they can afford to buy a spacecraft. That鈥檚 according to The Spaceship Company, a venture set up last week to make spacecraft by Burt Rutan鈥檚 Scaled Composites and Richard Branson鈥檚 Virgin Galactic.
With Virgin sponsorship, Scaled Composites of Mojave, California, flew its SpaceShipOne craft to over 100,000 metres in June 2004, and in October claimed the $10 million Ansari X prize for private spaceflight.
Two months later, Virgin Galactic began taking deposits of $20,000 for $200,000 tickets on space tourist flights on a future version of the craft, SpaceShipTwo.
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The Spaceship Company will build Virgin鈥檚 five spacecraft but will also sell them on the open market to would-be 鈥渟paceline operators鈥�. The date they will go on sale and price have not been set.
