SPACE tourism moved a step closer to reality on Thursday as Virgin Galactic unveiled its new Mission Control at a spaceport in New Mexico and the schedule for final test flights before taking paying customers into the final frontier. Spaceport America, a taxpayer-funded facility in New Mexico’s remote Jornada del Muerto desert, received its license to operate in 2008 and was officially “opened” by flamboyant British billionaire Richard Branson three years later. But despite having signed up more than 600 would-be space tourists across 60 countries, including several Hollywood celebrities, the project has been hit by delays.

 

 

An accident in 2014 that killed a co-pilot dealt Virgin Galactic -- and the wider cause of space tourism -- a major blow.

The company has since developed a viable spacecraft that has twice touched the edge of space, and chief executive George Whitesides told AFP last month it hoped to take its first paying passengers “within a year.” On Thursday, Virgin invited guests to see two floors “primarily focused on spaceflight operations, which also incorporates communal spaces designed for use in the future by Virgin Galactic customers, along with their friends and families,” it said in a statement.