Branson Opens New Spaceport

[Troy]

With his usual flair, British billionaire Richard Branson rappelled from a balcony, shook up a bottle of champagne and took a swig while christening the world's first built-from-scratch commercial spaceport.

In a remote patch of desert in southern New Mexico, Spaceport America is where Branson's Virgin Galactic will stage its commercial space tourism venture.

Branson, Governor Susana Martinez, and astronaut Buzz Aldrin were among the hundreds of people gathered at the spaceport terminal hangar facility for Monday's dedication.

Branson described the building as magnificent.

He said he hopes enough powered test flights of Virgin Galactic's sleek spacecraft can be done by the end of 2012 to start commercial suborbital flights from the spaceport.

More than 450 people have bought tickets to fly with Virgin Galactic. About 150 attended the ceremony.

Richard Branson is awesome and also insane. It is incredible how he keeps pushing the boundaries and organises things like this. Such a cool concept and he will find a way to make it profitable for him. I think that the cost is around $200k so to already have 450 people buying tickets that is impressive.

What do you think of this development and if you had the money would you pay for a trip?