You’re fired... into space: Bill set for Branson blast-off in 2013
Cullen, 70, was the first to sign up for a trip into space, paying his $200,000 in 2004.
With typical flair, Branson announced he and his children would be the first passengers when the programme begins. The Virgin boss and son Sam and daughter Holly are expected to be flying 60 miles into orbit on the SpaceShipTwo (SS2) aircraft by the end of next year.
He joined about 120 other tourists, including Cullen and his partner Jackie Lavin, who have signed up for the two-hour flights.
As the travellers and Branson posed at Farnborough Air Show in England beside a replica of SS2, the Virgin boss announced the WhiteKnightTwo aircraft that will help launch SS2 into space will also be used for a new launch vehicle — LauncherOne — which will take small satellites into space for one 10th of the present cost.
The Virgin Galactic team said a number of companies were keen to use LauncherOne.
From a spaceport built in New Mexico, USA, WhiteKnightTwo will take the SS2, with six passengers and two pilots, to a point about 50,000ft up before the SST rockets into space. Passengers will be able to float around the cabin due to weightlessness before the SS2 effectively becomes a glider for its return to the spaceport.
Virgin Galactic announced a total of 529 people — including, it is believed, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie — have signed up for an SS2 trip.
This number now outstrips the 528 who have gone into space since Yuri Gagarin’s first trip in 1961.
At Farnborough, Branson said: “Going into space is a hard business. It keeps my mind buzzing.”
He said he would have loved to have taken WhiteKnightTwo and SS2 to Farnborough.
And in a jokey remark concerning Virgin’s big airline rival, he said: “It would have been nice to have flown over the Olympic Games, especially as British Airways is one of the (Games) sponsors.” A number of the space tourists posed for pictures beside SS2 replica.
Cullen said: “I wanted to be the first Irishman in space and I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve been interested in space since I followed comic hero Dan Dare as a kid.”
Another space tourist at Farnborough was businessman Grant Roberts, 36, formerly from Lewes in East Sussex but now based in Dubai. He was with his father, Michael, 65, and his grandfather Frank Roberts, 90, who was an RAF pilot who flew missions over Germany in the Second World War. “I was inspired by the exploits of my grandfather, as was my father,” said Grant Roberts, who paid for his space trip in 2007.
Space tourists will have to undergo a week’s training at the spaceport before taking their flights. LauncherOne is expected to begin operations in 2016.
