Virgin Galactic received the world's first license for cosmotourism

Relatively recently , a note was published on Habré that in the United States and the world there has not yet been issued a single license for space tourism. That is, ships that can carry tourists to the orbit of our planet already exist, but there is no permission for such flights yet.

Rather, it was not. The other day, the company Virgin Galactic received permission to "space carting" from an organization such as the US Federal Aviation Administration. Initially, the experts had doubts that this organization would issue a work permit for Virgin Galactic (permission was expected last year, then in January of this year), but, as we see, everything worked out.
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However, the agreement provides for the need for a permanent work of Virgin Galactic with NAS (National Airspace System). In addition, safety measures for launching spacecraft from the Spaceport Spaceport have been specified. Last Virgin Galactic insured for 20 years. The spaceport, by the way, received its own license, Launch Site Operator License.

The company already has an agreement with the authorities of the State of California to conduct test launches of the SpaceshipTwo spacecraft. So now it remains only to wait for the test launches, followed by the already commercial flights.

By the way, the company of Elon Musk, SpaceX, is also in talks with the Texas spaceport about the possibility of conducting 12 launches of spacecraft a year. Currently, SpaceX pays more attention to working with NASA, launching its ships to deliver the necessary equipment, food and astronauts to the ISS.

Virgin Galactic hopes to conduct the first flight by the end of this year (it is worth recalling that the price of a ticket for such a flight is $ 250,000). So we are waiting.

Via bbc