4 companies offer suborbital flights

[AlecWest]

Between December 2006 and 2008, four companies plan to offer suborbital space flights to paying passengers:

Virgin Galactic (Windows Media video)

Aera Space Tours (Flash required)

PlanetSpace (some WMV files)

Blue Origin (owned by Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com CEO)

Ticket prices start just under $200,000 and go up from there. I saw a newscast on MSNBC where the announcer asked, "I wonder if that's First Class or Coach fare?" Personally, that wouldn't be my question. My question would be, "Is that a Round Trip or One Way fare?"

[ukb007]

This is an inside tip; don't tell anyone. It's round trip fare.

Thanks.

[AlecWest]

This is an inside tip; don't tell anyone. It's round trip fare.

Thanks.

Actually, they're more like three-way trips. As far as I know, none of the crafts being launched return the passengers to the exact point of departure by themselves. One of the scenarios even involves a "splashdown" landing.

But, I'll have to admit that if I had the money to burn, I'd probably go for it as long as I was reasonably sure (as much as I could be) that my chances of making it back to Earth in one piece (and breathing) were good. And, if I really had a lot of money to burn, I'd be real interested in staying at:

The Moon Hilton

[JohnnyCNote]

It seems like a glorified roller-coaster ride to me, but that's only my opinion. An old friend was 2nd in line to fly on the Challenger after Christie McAuliff. Needless to say, he feels a bit lucky about how things turned out....