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The world’s frontline private spaceflight enterprise, the VSS Enterprise (SpaceShipTwo) bankrolled by Sir Richard Branson, completed a manned glide flight (without rocket power) from over 45,000 feet in California. Branson, brash and toothy, declared that he would be present in Virgin Galactic’s first orbital flight, a two-and-a-half hour space tourism jamboree which will cost applicants 200,000 dollars each. He also plans to take his 93-year-old father and 87-year-old mother along with him, which some say is just canny self-promotion. What matters to Branson is that Virgin Galactic’s pole position in the corporate space race is now secure: it already has 370 customer deposits totalling 50 million dollars. And this is before a single passenger has been strapped in.
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