[imagesource: Virgin Galactic/The Spaceship Co/AFP/Getty Images]

Perhaps Richard Branson feels a little like SpaceX has stolen some of his thunder, but Virgin Galactic can still break new ground in the space tourism race.

The company is now based in the New Mexico desert (the same state as Roswell, for conspiracy theory fans), in a building named ‘Spaceport America’, and is finally showing off what passengers, who will pay around $250 000 a ticket, can expect once aboard its spacecraft.

Yesterday, Virgin Galactic showed off the inside of SpaceShipTwo, a crew cabin for up to six passengers and two pilots, who will enjoy a pretty decent view.

Before we get to that, here’s the promotional video the company released two weeks ago to ramp up excitement:

Well, in the hopefully not too distant future, you will no longer have to be an actual astronaut to go into space, with the Washington Post covering yesterday’s news:

[The cabin is] outfitted with custom seats, plenty of windows and 16 cameras to record all manner of weightless somersaults for the ultimate social media boasting.

“This cabin has been designed specifically to allow thousands of people like you and me to achieve the dream of spaceflight safely — and that is incredibly exciting,” Branson said in a statement…

Virgin’s goal is to open up space to the masses, realizing Branson’s goal of turning ordinary people, or at least those able to afford the steep ticket price, into astronauts, championing the transformative experience of seeing the Earth from a distance.

I mean, $250 000 a ticket isn’t exactly “the masses”, but I guess there are worse ways for the megawealthy to splash their cash.

To have a look inside the SpaceShipTwo, you can skip ahead to 21:35 in this video:

I’m a big fan of any chair that reclines, and the fact that it’s in space is a nice added bonus.

The SpaceShipTwo is “air launched”, which means that it’s actually tethered to a plane which escorts it to around 45 000 feet, before it’s released and its own rocket motor kicks into gear, launching it vertically until it reaches close to 97 kilometres above the earth’s surface

Once the cruising is over, the SpaceShipTwo returns to earth and “glides to the runway like an airplane”.

For those who just want to know whether the flight is going to be more comfortable than your average low-cost carrier, more from the Washington Post:

 The cabin has mood lighting and handholds around the windows to help passengers when they reach space, unbuckle their seat belts and experience a few minutes of weightlessness.

Image: Virgin Galactic/The Spaceship Co/AFP/Getty Images

At the end of the cabin, there is even a giant mirror that the company says “allows astronauts to view themselves weightless while illuminated by the natural brightness of the Earth.”

Each seatback has a digital screen that displays flight data.

I bet that giant mirror also makes for some cracking selfies.

There is no word on when the first commercial space tourism flight could take place, but Virgin Galactic won’t want to drag its heels.

Competition is stiff, with both SpaceX and the Blue Origin venture, which is headed by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, also in the race.

[source:washingtonpost]