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Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic's SpaceShip Two To Send Ashton, Leo, Angelina and Bieber To Space?

by Jason Ocampo / Feb 19, 2016 06:13 PM EST
SpaceShip Two

Airline mogul and "Rebel Billionaire" star Sir Richard Branson's dream of bringing outer space to commercial flying continued with today's reveal of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShip Two aircraft at a hangar in the Mojave Desert.

According to The Verge, "future passengers include numerous celebrities like Ashton Kutcher, Leonardo DiCaprio, Angelina Jolie, and Justin Bieber."

This comes months after a crash of the test aircraft occurred, according to The Evening Telegraph.

Sir Richard Branson reportedly guaranteed that no commercial flights will occur until the test pilots have "tested the ship time and time and time again," the Telegraph wrote.

SpaceShip Two is an embodiment of Richard Branson's vision to reach the skies and whatever lies beyond through his airline Virgin Galactic. The commercial spacecraft would allow passengers to visit space for leisure.

According to the site, each trip costs around £174,000 (or $250,000).

"The billionaire businessman gave TV viewers in Britain an early glimpse of the "mothership" this morning when he stood in front of it while appearing on Good Morning Britain," it added.

At the moment, around 700 individuals have already signed up to be passengers of the flights to space.

Testing is scheduled within the year.

Richard Branson clarified that the SpaceShip Two flights would be short and were only suborbital.

According to the National Transport Safety Board, the crash of the SpaceShip Two several months back was caused by an error by the co-pilot. It was reportedly combined with the alleged inability of the manufacturers to prevent such events from occurring, wrote Space.

"SpaceShipTwo crashed in October when co-pilot Michael Alsbury unlocked the commercial space plane's re-entry 'feathering' system too early during a test flight over California's Mojave Desert, investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board said," the site quoted the report.

Discovery said the crash killed the flight's co-pilot Michael Alsbury but Pete Siebold ejected from the aircraft.

Richard Branson has called Virgin Galactic's SpaceShip Two as the "sexiest spaceship ever."

Meanwhile, the latest version of the aircraft has been guaranteed to be safer, with upgrades that were a result of both the crash as well as pre-crash modifications to streamline the project.

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