The space tourism company Virgin galactic announced on Monday having sold since August a hundred tickets to travel into space for $ 450,000 each.
The current price is well above the between $ 200,000 and $ 250,000 paid by 600 clients between 2005 and 2014.
The new rate “has been well received,” the company said in a statement, recalling that its objective is sell 1,000 tickets before the launch of the first commercial flight scheduled for the end of 2022.
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“We are entering a period of fleet improvement with a clear roadmap to increase durability, the reliability and predictability of our commercial service aircraft, “said Michael Colglazier, CEO of Virgin galactic, it’s a statement.
“The demand for space travel is strong and we are selling seats faster than we expected, “he added.
The founder of the company, the British Richard Branson, was the first billionaire to fly into space on July 11 in a spaceship of his private company, days before Jeff bezos he would do it on a device from his company, Blue Origin.
But the Virgin Galactic spacecraft was temporarily immobilized by US authorities in September after it left the airspace authorized for its inaugural mission.
Virgin galactic announced in October that delayed from the third to the fourth quarter of the year Your first commercial flight is coming to allow time for safety improvements. The company confirmed on Monday that it maintains that forecast.
Competition among billionaires for space tourism is fierce. In addition to Branson and Bezos, Elon Musk and their company SpaceX sent four space tourists in September for three days around the Earth.
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Virgin Galactic says it still has nearly $ 1 billion in cash to fund its operations until it is profitable.
In the third quarter of 2021, the company posted a net loss of $ 48 million, less than the 92 million it lost in the same period of 2020.
