Virgin Galactic

Richard Branson has been a successful entrepreneur since he was a teenager. 

Richard Branson

He started with a record label, eventually built an airline called Virgin Atlantic, and now is the driving force behind Virgin Galactic, a company poised to give customers the chance to travel into space and return safely.

Spaceship Two with Mothership

Famed aeronautical innovator Burt Rutan is the man behind the technology that drives the Virgin Galactic vision.  The goal when Branson and Rutan began was to create a system for delivering a handful of people into suborbital space and bringing them back safely and relatively inexpensively.  It appears that Virgin Galactic is close to delivering on that promise.   They have built a spaceport in New Mexico and expect to begin commercial space travel in the next 24 months or so.

Here is a link to the Virgin Galactic website.. .http://www.virgingalactic.com/

Here is a video that tells the Virgin Galactic story...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRvC9bVMX2k