Virgin Galactic sold 100 tickets to travel to space for $450,000
Steph Deschamps / November 10, 2021
It had previously sold a total of about 600 reservations for between $200,000 and $250,000.
The new fare has been well received, the company said in a statement, recalling its goal of selling 1,000 tickets before the launch of the first commercial flight in late.
We are entering a period of fleet improvement with a clear roadmap to increase the durability, reliability and predictability of our commercial service aircraft next year, Michael Colglazier, Virgin Galactic's chief executive, said in a statement.
The demand for space travel is strong and we are selling seats faster than we expected, he added.
His company's founder, British entrepreneur Richard Branson, was the first billionaire to go into space on July 11aboard the spacecraft of a private company he himself created -- before Jeff Bezos on a Blue Origin aircraft a few days later.
But the Virgin Galactic spacecraft was temporarily grounded by U.S. authorities in September following an incident during that flight, when the craft briefly flew outside the mission's authorized airspace.
Virgin Galactic also postponed in mid-October its first commercial flight by one quarter, now scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2022, the time to strengthen the safety of the aircraft.