There's a new luxury product emerging in the retail industry -- suborbital space travel -- and Virtuoso agents already have the market cornered.
Eighteen more Virtuoso members became "Accredited Space Agents" for Virgin Galactic's VSS Enterprise, the commercial spaceship that will take passengers into suborbital space possibly as soon as late 2010. They join a group of some 50 Virtuoso retailers who earlier qualified for the distinction.
Virgin Galactic, which appointed the highbrow Virtuoso network as its exclusive retail sales channel for the Americas back in 2006, rolled out its Enterprise during a naming ceremony in California's Mojave Desert late this year.
At $200,000 a ticket, what can clients expect?
According to Virgin Galactic's website, after the countdown to release, "a brief moment of quiet before a wave of unimaginable but controlled power surges through the craft. You are instantly pinned back into your seat, overwhelmed but enthralled by the howl of the rocket motor and the eye-watering acceleration which, as you watch the readout, has you traveling in a matter of seconds at almost 2,500 mph, over three times the speed of sound."
A mothership will carry the Enterprise to above 50,000 feet before the spaceship is dropped and fires its rocket motor to go into suborbital space from that altitude. Its six passenger seats will slide into a horizontal position for the launch and re-entry periods, when G-forces will be highest.
The ticket price is, well, sky high for a few hours' fun. It begs the question: How does an agent peg a client as a potential "suborbiter"? We asked Virtuoso CEO Matthew Upchurch.
"The ideal customer for Virgin Galactic is a traveler with an adventurous, pioneering spirit or someone who sees travel as a means of expanding their perspective of the world," he said. "Similar to travelers who took the first transatlantic flights, these are individuals who want a life-changing experience and to be part of a historic moment in travel."
Virtuoso, he noted, "embodies this same spirit, and it's for that reason that Virgin Galactic partnered with Virtuoso: because we believe that commercial space tourism will have a profound impact on the future and very essence of travel, as we continue reaching for new horizons to expand the mind and the soul."
Virtuoso's motto, after all, is "We Orchestrate Dreams," and Upchurch believes that "going to space is the ultimate dream for many travelers."
Virgin Galatic might be the most celebrated company in the space travel market, but there are others. The Zero Gravity Corp., for one, has offered a "weightlessness" product the last few years, but it isn't quite the same.
The company, founded in 1993 by Peter Diamandis and astronaut Byron Lichtenberg, uses a Boeing 727 configured to provide a weightless environment, "allowing you to float, flip and soar as if you were in space." The aircraft performs parabolic maneuvers that create reduced-gravity environments on the plane during phases of rapid descent.
The Zero Gravity Corp. has a website at www.gozero.com. Virgin Galactic's is at www.virgingalactic.com.