I Am Paying $200,000 for Five Minutes in Space
In 2010, I gave Virgin Galactic a five-figure downpayment. In 2014, Virgin's spacecraft crashed in the desert,
killing one of its test pilots. I'm not worried. I'm still training.
By Jim Clash
December 13, 2016
On a blindingly bright January afternoon in 2010, I went to my bank to get a cashier's check for $20,000. It was my birthday, and I was
buying myself the present I'd been waiting for my entire life: a trip to space.
This fat chunk of cash would become a 10 percent downpayment for a ticket aboard Virgin Galactic, billionaire Richard Branson's bold
plan to hurl ordinary humans into space. To do this, Branson plans to use rocket planes that can carry space tourists 62 miles up and
travel at three times the speed of sound. Ninety days before my trip, I'd need to pay the remaining $180,000. That's $200,000 for a
five-minute sojourn beyond Earth's stratosphere.
Read more: