Rocketship revealed: 8-seater to head to weightlessness and peer at Earth curves

Fancy-man Sir Richard Branson unveiled what his rocketship will look like in the Mojave Dessert yesterday. Branson outlined an aggressive testing and launch plan that sees the rocket prototyped and rigorously tested next year and commercial trips beginning as soon as 2011. Each seat will cost $200,000.

Branson says each passenger will get to experience the thrill of space flight. This includes six minutes of weightlessness and enough altitude to see the curvature of the Earth. Branson and his family have committed to be among the first trip’s passengers.

Branson hopes to put thousands of passengers into space, mocking NASA for only getting 480 people in space for billions of dollars spent. Branson already has $480 million dollars from prospective customers waiting to ditch this rock.

The ship will reach altitude using a booster craft plus it’s own engines to get them the full 65 miles about the earth’s surface. It is estimated that the trip will last 2 and a half hours. Despite the complexity of a flight such as this, Branson says, ‘We’re literally hoping to send thousands of people into space over the next couple of years. We want to make sure that we build a spaceship that is 100- percent safe.’

The line forms to the right.

Read [monstersandcritics]

Photo credit: Yahoo!