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By Cyriaque Lamar Jul 17, 2010 8:30 AM 5,337

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Virgin Galactic’s tourism spaceship, making its first flight with crew

Here's Virgin Galactic's SpaceShip Two cruising over the Mojave Desert last Thursday. The VSS Enterprise spacecraft didn't travel into suborbital space but stayed affixed to its mothership. Virgin's planned price for a few minutes of suborbital views? $200,000.

The SpaceShip Two wasn't carrying guests on Thursday — its crew was just testing the spacecraft. Virgin's WhiteKnightTwo VMS Eve mothership is designed to fly tourists to approximately 50,000 feet, where the VSS Enterprise will disembark and offer them a few minutes of suborbital kicks. My prediction? Virgin will run into problems with shameless billionaires trying to attempt humanity's first space bonk.

[Via SPACE. Photo credit: Virgin Galactic.]

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