All systems go as bubbly Branson launches Spaceport America

Virgin Galactic will stage its commercial space tourism venture from Spaceport America in a remote patch of desert in southern New Mexico.

Sir Richard was joined by Governor Susana Martinez, astronaut Buzz Aldrin and scores of would-be space travellers at the terminal-hangar for the dedication, almost a year since the British entrepreneur was in New Mexico to celebrate the completion of the runway and six since the Virgin Galactic reached an agreement to build the spaceport.

“The building is absolutely magnificent,” he said. “It is literally out of this world, and that’s what we were aiming at creating.”

With the spaceport and mothership completed, the company is now finalising its rocket tests.

“We’re ticking the final boxes on the way to space,” Sir Richard said.

He hopes enough powered test flights of Virgin Galactic’s sleek spacecraft can be done by the end of 2012 to start commercial suborbital flights from the spaceport soon after.

More than 450 people have purchased tickets to fly with Virgin Galactic. About 150 of them attended the ceremony.

Before getting to enter the hangar, the crowd was treated to a flyover by WhiteKnightTwo, the mothership that one day will help take space tourists on suborbital flights.

The $209m taxpayer-financed spaceport will be a launch station for people and payloads on the rocket ships being developed for Virgin Galactic.

With custom metal panelling and massive panes of glass, the state-of-the-art terminal rises from the desert floor to face the nearly two-mile concrete runway.

The building will house spacecraft, mission control and a preparation area for travellers.

The big question, however, is when the first ships will launch, since it had been Sir Richard who once predicted the maiden passenger flight would take off in 2007.

He acknowledged the wait, saying he and his two children will be among the first to fly, and he said he wanted to ensure he could bring them home safely.

“We want to be sure we’ve really tested the craft through and through before turning it over to the astronauts who bought tickets to go up,” he said. “If it takes a bit longer, we’ll take a little bit longer.”

Tickets for rides aboard WhiteKnightTwo cost $200,000. The two-and-a-half-hour flights will include about five minutes of weightlessness and views of Earth that until now only astronauts have been able to experience.