A flight of fancy

A Central Coast travel agency has an out-of-this-world itinerary for people who find routine airline travel mundane and want a new thrill - for a mere $200,000.

Richard Branson, a British entrepreneur, has paired with Burt Rutan, a Cal Poly graduate and aviation pioneer, to carry people to space on Virgin Galactic, which they're touting as Earth's first “spaceline.”

Montecito Village Travel, an affiliate of a high-end travel agency consortium called Virtuoso, has one of only a dozen accredited Virgin Galactic agents in the state, according to Colin Weatherhead, owner of a string of travel agencies based in Santa Barbara.

“It's going to be a limited market because, one, it's expensive, and two, it's not for the faint of heart,” said Weatherhead.

Along with the Montecito agency, which is geared toward upper-end travelers, he owns Your Travel Center, which has seven offices from Pismo Beach to Hacienda Heights, plus three more near Phoenix, Ariz.

The firm handled $80 million in sales last year, one-third of which were corporate travel, he added.

“We think it's exposure to the company,” Weatherhead said of his firm's role with Virgin Galactic.

“We think it's exciting. ... We think there will be a number of people that will be interested.”

Virgin Galactic picked Virtuoso, a consortium for more wealthy travelers who routinely stay at places such as Four Seasons or Ritz Carlton, as the sole marketing company to book space flights.

Weatherhead said Craig Buck, one of his independent contractors who already has the clientele for the niche market of high-end travelers, was picked by Virgin Galactic to be an accredited “space agent.”

“He has movie stars, movie producers, he has clients that basically, one, can afford it, and two, have a sense of adventure that really would benefit from that sort of experience,” Weatherhead said.

Since attending a training seminar in Orlando in early February, Buck has already sold one trip, Weatherhead said.

Besides a big wad of cash, what else does a passenger need?

Weatherhead said reasonable health is another requirement.

By 2009, Virgin Galactic plans to start taking passengers 75 miles high for a trip expected to last a little more than two hours.

That trip promises to take travelers to 10 miles up initially, before the spaceship propels them - at 3 Gs, or three times the force of gravity - to 75 miles high in 90 seconds.

“That's pretty scary,” Weatherhead said, likening it to throwing a ball up in the air till it falls at twice the speed it traveled to reach the height.

“So when you're coming down you're going at twice the speed of going up. That's what would probably not go too well with me.”

The supersonic flights will use a sibling of SpaceShipOne, a Rutan-designed vehicle that is carried aloft in a specially designed jet aircraft.

Upon release from the mother ship, the spaceship rockets through the atmosphere.

“You also will be prepared for the extremes of sound and silence you will hear, and also be taught the etiquette of floating freely in weightlessness,” according to Virgin Galactic's publicity brochures.

Rutan's spacecraft made history by twice flying to space in 2004, earning the Ansari X Prize for him and his firm, Scaled Composites.

The $10 million X Prize was the reward for winning a contest to safely launch and land a privately developed rocketship.

Vandenberg Village resident Don Smith, a space advocate, supports Virgin Galactic's mission to open space travel to the masses.

“I think it's a good thing,” he said.

“It's getting people interested in what's going on.”

He noted that his mother took a $5 airplane flight in the 1920s, whetting her interest in flying.

“In those days $5 was a large amount of money,” he said.

“I would think this is a similar situation and it's getting people interested.”

Virgin Galactic intends to launch its flights initially from the Mojave Desert, but eventually move to a commercial spaceport being developed in New Mexico.

The high-end traveler looking to spend nearly a quarter of a million dollars would typically book penthouse suites or around-the-world cruises that last 100 days, Weatherhead said.

At $200,000 per trip, compared to the reported $20 million for a Russian rocket ride to the International Space Station, Virgin Galactic might seem like a deal - except the weightless segment lasts minutes, not days.

“It's the experience these people are paying for,” Weatherhead said.

“It's a unique experience that they can brag about to their friends, if you like. They're going to see the world from 75 miles out. That's probably pretty cool.”

After a pause, however, he added frankly, “I'd prefer to see it from TV.”

March 19, 2007