Tourists In Space—Justin Bieber And Leonardo DiCaprio Have Already Purchased Tickets As Demand Skyrockets

Appropriately named “One Small Step”, Virgin Galactic have seen demand for tickets to space skyrocket—forgive the pun.

By taking “one small step” would-be tourist-astronauts can register with a refundable $1,000 deposit to join a waiting list when the next batch of tickets are released.

Over the last six months Virgin Galactic has now seen more than 8,000 registrations, with 600 seats already sold on the inaugural flight.

“One Giant Leap” is the next process of travelers purchasing their tickets, which include the likes of Justin Bieber and Leonardo DiCaprio. Sir Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Galactic has also said he will be on the first flight.

Last year Virgin Galactic unveiled pictures of their new departure lounge at Spaceport America for tourists who will take 90-minute sub-orbital trips.

With the dawn of space tourism getting ever-closer Virgin Galactic are not the only ones offering space travel. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin space company will launch crewed test flights of its New Shepard craft in 2020.

Elon Musks Space X is planning to take a Japanese billionaire around the moon by 2023 and by 2025 the first space hotel could be welcoming guests. 

Virgin Galactic are the only publicly listed space transportation company, with the first batch of tickets selling for $250,000.

With Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk all vying to facilitate the first commercial space flights, space travel continues to be a major financial burden on the companies. Virgin Galactic posted a full-year loss for 2019 yesterday of $211 million, on revenue of just $3.8 million.

Despite that, Virgin Galactic has seen demand almost double over the last 12 months for their space trips. 

With Space X last week announcing a deal to launch tourists into space on a Crew Dragon Spacecraft, the race is certainly intensifying to send cosmonauts into the upper atmosphere.