Space tourism craft makes its virgin flight

A suborbital spaceship owned by aspiring space tourism operator Virgin Galactic was airlifted into the skies over California's Mojave Desert last week for its first flight. The six-passenger ship, VSS Enterprise, remained attached to the center of its carrier aircraft throughout the flight. Virgin Galactic, an offshoot of London-based Virgin Group, has collected about $45 million in deposits and fares from more than 330 amateur astronauts, each of whom will be charged $200,000 to experience a few minutes of suborbital spaceflight. Enterprise is closely modeled on a prototype named SpaceShipOne, which is now in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Test flights are scheduled through 2011, with commercial operations targeted to begin in 2012.

-- Reuters