South Australia, Victoria possible hosts to Virgin Galactic space venture

William Atkins
Monday, 14 April 2008 18:28

Science - Space

For a ticket price of about US$225,000, that’s about $577 per second of weightlessness aboard SpaceShipTwo.

The ship, when finally constructed, will be the size of a large-cabin Gulfstream IV business jet.

As of March 2008, about three hundred fifty tickets have been sold.

South Australia and Victoria, no doubt, know that New Mexico is expecting to generate about US$450 million per year from Virgin Galactic related activities in the state by the year 2015.

The money generated from an Australia venture would help either state’s economy, especially since passengers will be staying near the launch site for two to three days of training before each flight, which is plenty of time to spend money.

Besides Australia, Virgin Galactic officials are also considering spaceport sites in the United Arab Emirates and Sweden as they expand internationally.

[Author's note: I don't live in Australia, but in the United States. However, according to the Australian government the largest "state" of Australia is Western Australia, followed by Queensland, South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania. The three "territories" of Australia are Northern Territory, its largest (only WA and Queensland are larger, of the states), followed by Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and Jervis Bay Territory, which have the least areas of all the six states and three territories, with ACT larger than Jarvis Bay. I think my figures are correct now. Thanks for bringing up this point, which, I agree is not relevant to the article itself, but I was attempting to describe the two states to non-Australians.]