Last time I wrote about Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan he was flying horses to Abu Dhabi. He's in the news again with a big purchase. The Telegraph reports that he has bought a 32 percent stake in Richard Branson's space tourism project, Virgin Galactic ,for $280 million. The deal, which was done through the sheikh's company Aabar, puts the value of Virgin Galactic at $900 million even though it hasn't begun to offer flights yet. The deal represents a significant vote for the viability and inevitable profitability of space travel. This deal means that Abu Dhabi will be hosting Virgin Galactic tourism and research flights. There is also a plan to build spaceport facilities in Abu Dhabi. Meanwhile Sir Richard Branson is showing off the WhiteKnightTwo (VMS Eve), at the Experimental Aircraft Association's 2009 AirVenture annual fly-in and convention in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The spacecraft that will carry the tourists, SpaceShipTwo, should begin testing later this year. No date for the start of commercial operations has been set yet but around 300 people have paid the $200,000 for an advance space ticket.

The 40th anniversary of the first moonwalk is swiftly approaching: July 20, 2009. And although it's been long in the making, Virgin Galactic moves ever closer to making a space journey a reality for private citizens willing to spend $200,000. (A bargain, really, considering that arranging private space travel today costs about $20 million.) On May 28, 2009, Virgin Galactic announced the successful completion of the first phase of tests of the rocket motor that will propel space tourists up, up and away.

There are still more tests to go, but at this point, the plan is to start sending passengers into space as soon as late 2010. (Delays are very likely, so no need to go into an oxygen-free environment just yet -- don't hold your breath.) There's no moonwalking in the cards, but there is traveling at 3,000 miles an hour to 70 miles above the earth's surface, experiencing weightlessness and a view of more than 1,000 miles in all directions.

If you want to get to this before the been-there-done-that's set in -- at current tally, there are 300 people from 42 countries waiting for their turn -- it's worth signing up early. You can accomplish this exclusively through luxury travel pros Virtuoso, who are the first "Accredited Space Agents."

In fact, Virtuoso founder Matthew D. Upchurch is a candidate to be among the first to make the trip. Whether he's on the very first flight will be determined by a lottery -- he's got a 1 in 14 chance. But hey, the odds of reaching the moon at all forty years ago had to be longer than that.

You'd figure that after winning grands prix and driving the fastest cars on the planet, an accomplished F1 driver would have had his fill of extreme Gs and rapid acceleration, but these are speed junkies, and they're always looking for a new adventure. That could be why two seasoned F1 pros are lining up, among the myriad celebrities and billionaires, to experience a low-orbit space flight with Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic.

Sponsoring the winning Brawn GP car at this past weekend's race in Bahrain, Virgin Galactic announced their two latest recruits: Rubens Barrichello and Niki Lauda. Barrichello, who is second in the standings for the F1 world championship this year, has already paid the $200,000 for his ticket on one of Virgin's space flights, which Branson delivered in person at the race. Three-time world champion Niki Lauda, however, is planning to take it even further by undertaking training, at age 60, to pilot the Virgin spacecraft and take other paying tourists up into space. Lauda already owns his own airline and sometimes pilots the flights himself, but even for the driver who's been to hell and back, this should be a new adventure altogether.

Those whose taste runs to the exotic might be tempted to check out the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden. The hotel already offers dog sled and snowmobile safaris but it will now sell space flights. Virgin Galactic will be offering trips from nearby Kiruna which is the northernmost city in Sweden. The trips should begin in 2012 and tourists can choose a summer trip in the ceaseless light of the midnight sun or a trip during the dark winter highlighted by the luminous aurora borealis. Tickets will likely cost around $200,000 for the trip.

Sir Richard Branson is so excited about the design for the Virgin Galactic spaceship designs he's willing to wear them. Yesterday, Branson recently showed off the design of Virgin Galactic's new space launch system based on the X Prize-winning technology of SpaceShipOne. The White Knight Two carrier aircraft is being built at Scaled Composites in the Mojave Desert and should begin flight testing this summer. The mothership is the world's largest, all carbon composite aircraft and is powered by four Pratt and Whitney PW308A engines to launch SpaceShipTwo and its eight astronauts into sub-orbital space flight. SpaceShipTwo is now 60% complete. It's good news for those eager for space travel, already 80 of SpaceShipTwo's first passengers have gone through medical assessment and preliminary training. Thousands more have indicated their eagerness to board experience space flight once Virgin Galactic is operational.

With the plans for Virgin Galactic proceeding full steam, tourists are lining up for commercial sub-orbital spaceflights. Elegant Resorts has announced that they are the official "space agent" in Russia, CIS and the UK. Some of the staff from Elegant Resorts went to the International Space University in Strasbourg this summer to learn about spaceflight technology, G-forces, weightlessness and all of the details of the three-day Virgin Galactic Experience. The first commercial flight is expected to take place in 2009 and already 70,000 people have registered their interest on the Virgin Galactic website. So far 200 people around the world have signed up to pay the $200,000 fee for a short suborbital space ride.

We first heard about the plans for Virgin Galactic and Spaceport America back in December 2005. The home base for space travel promises to bring space tourism to the New Mexico desert. Now the team of US and British architects and designers working on the project have released design renderings of Spaceport America. The design is from a US-British consortium of URS Corporation and Foster + Partners and shows a low-slung design which is tucked into the earth and uses passive energy for heating and cooling with photovoltaic panels for electricity and water recycling. Massive windows open out to the runway. People enter through a deep channel cut in the landscape. The terminal and hanger are expected to cost around $31 million and construction will begin in 2008 with late 2009 or early 2010 projected as a completion date. Big pics of the design drawings in the gallery.

[via Aero-News Network]