Away From It All

AEROSPACE

SPACE-that final frontier-has lured astronauts for 46 years. Now, here come the tourists. British entrepreneur Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic expects to begin commercial space flights in 2009 at $200,000 a pop. His ship, VSS Enterprise, will carry two pilots and six passengers, soar 68 miles into suborbital space and hit a speed of 2,500 mph-nearly three times the speed of sound. It was designed by Burt Rutan and is modeled after his SpaceShipOne, which captured the $10 million Ansari X Prize in 2004. Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin project intends to start weekly flights by 2010. Its planned ship, New Shepard, aims to take three passengers 62 miles up into zero gravity territory for a few seconds of thrills before heading back to Earth. Last November, Blue Origin successfully launched a cone-shaped test vehicle to a height of 285 feet before gently landing. Another group, Oklahoma's Rocketplane Kistler, also wants to launch tourist flights by 2009 in a plane that will haul three passengers and a pilot. Can space motels be far behind? -TG

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