Virgin Galactic, NASA to work jointly on private tourism, space station visits

Billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc said on Monday it has signed up with NASA to develop a program to promote private missions to the International Space Station (ISS), sending the shares of the company up about 16%. As part of its agreement with the Johnson Space Center, the space tourism company will identify candidates interested in buying tickets for private rides to space in orbital-grade vehicles from other companies, and develop training packages under its “astronaut readiness program.” The company competes with billionaire-backed ventures such as Amazon.com Inc’s Blue Origin that are vying to usher in a new era of space tourism, racing to be the first to offer sub-orbital flights to civilian space travelers.

[caption id=“attachment_7883151” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”] Virgin Galactic’s next passenger spaceship stands on its landing gear in a weight-on-wheels test in the company’s Mojave Air and Space Port in California. Image: Thomas Storesund/Virgin Galactic[/caption]

Virgin Galactic offers zero-gravity experiences to customers with its centerpiece SpaceShipTwo plane and has long-term point-to-point travel plans to quickly transport passengers from city to city at near-space altitudes. This is the second agreement between Virgin Galactic and the U.S. space agency. In May, the two entered an agreement to develop ‘high-Mach’ aircraft for potential civilian use. For NASA, the private partnerships are helping it revive its own human space missions. Last month, Elon Musk’s SpaceX ended NASA’s nine-year hiatus by delivering two astronauts to the ISS. The space agency is leaning heavily on private companies built around shared visions for space exploration, as it gears up for a long-term presence on the moon and prepares for a manned mission to Mars. Shares of Virgin Galactic closed at $17.39.