One of the best places to study the stars is at night from a cruise ship at sea. All being well, you’ll be able get a lot closer to the stars soon.

Virgin Galactic is in the final stages of developing and testing a commercial sub-orbital space vehicle based on the prototype SpaceShipOne, that flew successfully to space and back three times in 2004.

Nearly 300 people from around the world have already paid about $40m in deposits to guarantee an early seat aboard SpaceShipTwo, which will be taking passengers through the Aurora Borealis.

I bet you’re thinking “So what? It’s a great idea but I probably couldn’t afford it. So what’s the relevance to me?”

More than you’d think.

Up to now, space travel has been largely in the hands of governments, who are a bit slow in coming forward. Everything seems to take forever.

It’s been over 40 years since men first walked on the moon. And apart from the usual short hops up and down to space stations circling the Earth, there hasn’t been a great rush for human beings to step on to another planet.

Yes, I know that several countries have now decided to restart the space race, but we’re talking decades before they get to Mars. At this rate I won’t be around to witness it.

Besides, if the human race is to survive, we need to start expanding on to other planets or moons in our Solar System ASAP. For the chances are that our own planet may not make it beyond the next century or so.

As the late Carl Sagan once said, we are all made from star-stuff and destined to join galactic civilizations throughout the universe, possibly by travelling through the black hole network, if there is one. Or maybe via other dimensions.

So why do I think space tourism if so important? Partly because commercial interests tend to get move things along a bit faster than most governments. Also, some of the paying astronauts may well be inspired to do their bit…as well as looking back on our planet and realising that maybe we should all pull together, rather than attempt to tear the Earth apart with our minor squabbles.

And as most of the paying astronauts will presumably be reasonably wealthy, some of them may be prepared to put their money where their expanded vision of the universe is. And all this from a sub-orbital space cruise.

I’m hoping that these space cruises continue to be so successful that the price drops, so even poor old buggers like me can have a go. I’ll even join the crew as a wine steward, if they like, for what better way to view the stars than through a rose coloured glass, especially a full one.

Imagine when we discover a more efficient means of travelling to the stars – perhaps by wormholes. Suddenly we would leap from stopover ports to stopover vacation planets.

I just hope the restaurants on these worlds have more atmosphere than some of the restaurants I’ve had the misfortune to eat in on this planet.

So go ahead and beam us all up, Virgin. Some of us are rarin’ to go.

James Leavey

For more information on what Virgin Galactic are up to or if you’ve got $40m hidden under the bed then the Virgin Galactic website is full of pictures, video and answers to your questions about the programme.

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