Author Topic: Virgin Galactic services, sales & pricing (Read 17053 times)

FutureSpaceTourist · « **on:** 02/26/2020 06:37 pm »

When Virgin Galactic started in 2004 ticket price was $200,000.

After some years this was raised to $250,000. Now VG are talking about restarting ticket sales, it seems the price is increasing again, at least for ‘special flights’:

https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/1232706763998269441

Quote

Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides on @SquawkAlley:

Premium pricing for new ticket sales will come later this year but "certain types of special flights may be priced higher," from $300,000 to $500,000.

"I could imagine even $1 million for certain special flights."
$SPCE

Will be interesting to see what ‘special’ means. There was talk of flights through the Northern Lights, if a Swedish spaceport happened. I’d call that special, not sure what else?

ncb1397 · « **Reply #1 on:** 02/26/2020 07:38 pm »

Quote from: FutureSpaceTourist on 02/26/2020 06:37 pm

Will be interesting to see what ‘special’ means. There was talk of flights through the Northern Lights, if a Swedish spaceport happened. I’d call that special, not sure what else?

They talked about it on the earnings call. Some people just want to fly on their own or with a family member. That is going to be more costly. I think they also talked about people wanting to fly with celebrities or something. So, the 5 other seats with Brad Pitt might cost different amounts. Don't quote me on that last part though. Anyways, it just came out that their math was the 8000 people represented 2.4 billion in potential revenue. The per ticket cost then comes out to $300,000. I haven't done the math on if that is more or less than normal inflation.

BTW, I guess this can go here. It might deserve a new thread though. The Small Step program appears to be operational. Virgin Galactic is taking refundable deposits of $1000 or .33% of the assumed price to get in line. The credit card line seems to be new....

https://www.virgingalactic.com/smallstep/

FutureSpaceTourist · « **Reply #2 on:** 04/23/2020 07:01 am »

Quote

NASA may start using private suborbital flights to train astronauts
Devin Coldewey@techcrunch / 8:09 pm BST • April 21

Astronauts may make a second home of space, but even they have a first time going up. NASA is hoping to better prepare its crews for the challenges of space by sending them on suborbital flights from the likes of Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin — suggesting a potentially huge new market for the nascent private spaceflight industry.

Speaking at the Next Generation Suborbital Researchers conference in March, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine explained that the agency was considering private carriers now mainly because previously the possibility simply didn’t exist.

https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/21/nasa-may-start-using-private-suborbital-flights-to-train-astronauts/

ncb1397 · « **Reply #3 on:** 04/23/2020 07:32 am »

It is a good idea. It is pretty crazy to think that of the astronaut candidates that put in applications in 2011, many of them haven't flown either above the karman line or the air force definition of space 9 years later. For a few million dollars per year, they could all fly suborbital initially almost immediately after training or during training(maybe 2 at a time) and orbital later (assuming the suborbital service is safe enough).

gongora · « **Reply #4 on:** 04/23/2020 02:39 pm »

Would the cost and duration of microgravity really be worth it compared to parabolic flights?

RonM · « **Reply #5 on:** 04/23/2020 02:50 pm »

Quote from: gongora on 04/23/2020 02:39 pm

Would the cost and duration of microgravity really be worth it compared to parabolic flights?

Several minutes of continuous microgravity in a suborbital flight might be better training than several 30 second periods on an aircraft. The astronauts also experience a launch. Shorter than a ride to orbit, but an experience you don't get on an airplane.