Frequent Flyer Miles get an upgrade

Virgin Galactic is nearing its launch and it has emerged that one of the first customers to take a commercial trip to space will be a businessman who has amassed a sufficient quantity of airmiles. Alan Watts, managing director of an electrical engineering firm (wait, does that name mean this is a joke?) will take off on the £98,000 trip in 2009. That's an incredible amount of flying isn't it? What if he turns out to be a DVT risk and can't go? Good luck Alan!

Looks like quite a lot of fun and the price mark is a lot lower than I thought it would be. That kind of price with the reductions that can be expected of a commercial service implies that ordinary people may be able to experience spaceflight within my lifetime. It will be as remarkable experience as flying was for those who experienced it first near the start of the last century. Another remarkable expansion of the human experience; don't let the pessimists get you down.

Pictures of the interior look swanky. Perhaps it is time for Easyspace to paint this all Orange?