By The British billionaire Richard Branson has just opened Galactic Gateway To Space for business today. Previously known as Spaceport America, Branson says about the first commercial spaceport that “is absolutely magnificent. It is literally out of this world, and that’s what we were aiming at creating. We want to be sure we’ve really tested the craft through and through before turning it over to the astronauts who bought tickets to go up”.
One year after the completion of the runway, Branson has been accompanied by astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Gov. Susana Martinez and by would-be space travelers today at the ceremony. The building has been designed by New Mexico architects SMPC, United Kingdom-based Foster + Partners and the URS corp.
It still needs some time till the first flights into the suborbital space. More tests will be done by the end of the next year and only after that the first suborbital flights will launch.
450 passengers have already bought tickets for these suborbital flights paying £125,000 for tickets and among them there’s of course Branson and his two children. The suborbital flight will last 2 hours and will include views of Earth that only astronauts have experienced so far as well as five minutes of weightlessness.
150 of the people who purchased tickets participated in the ceremony. These people were first to see the mothership known as WhiteKnightTwo and then they entered the hangar. Still, the company needs a license from the Federal Aviation Administration before starting the commercial service.
Check the video below to see a part of the ceremony.