The space airline, set up back in 2005, is gearing up for its first commercial space flight, scheduled to take off sometime next year. For US$200,000 (RM700,000), which is the going price of a ticket, avid space buffs can go to space and experience four minutes of weightlessness. Dennis Tito, the world’s first space tourist, paid US$20 million for an eight-day trip to the International Space Station in 2001. Virgin Atlantic may be charging a fraction of that, but the cost would still be prohibitive for most people.
Cost aside, marketing something as complex as space travel is not as straightforward as selling an air ticket, especially when there is no confirmed launch date. Yet, judging by the number of people who have signed up, things look encouraging for Virgin Galactic. 
According to Carolyn Wincer, head of astronaut sales at Virgin Galactic, some 300 people from over 40 countries have signed up. “We obviously do publicity, your basic fundamental marketing stuff like email shots, print campaigns and things like that,” she said in an interview on July 14. Wincer was in Kuala Lumpur to speak at the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants’ (CIMA) world conference 2009.
“The key (differentiator) is that it costs US$200,000 per ticket. So you can’t sell space travel the same way that you can sell a Swatch watch. But it is very similar to selling expensive holidays, to selling private jets, to selling expensive cars.”
To market Galactic’s space programme, Wincer enlists the help of travel agents or accredited space agents (ASAs) from various locations around the globe that already have a list of clients who would be interested.
“We look at them (travel agents) being in a location that has some market potential. So that means there’s got to be people there who have the means and the desire to do something like this. Most of the agencies we’ve chosen already have those kinds of people as clients for other products,” she said.
Galactic has recruited around 73 ASAs from 38 countries, including the UK, US, Hong Kong, Australia and the United Arab Emirates. The travel agents from the ASAs undergo a one-day intensive training programme to understand Virgin Galactic’s space flight technology, Wincer explained. It’s crucial for the travel agents to understand the technology as it answers most people’s concerns about space travel.
One of the key factors of Galactic’s spacecraft technology is its safety feature. The first spacecraft, SpaceShip One, is made from carbon composite, a material stronger than the metal usually used in space shuttles. Its lightness makes the spacecraft fuel-efficient, added Wincer.
Another safety feature of the spacecraft is the “feathers” used upon re-entry, which is based on the badminton shuttlecock. Re-entry is usually the most dangerous part of space flight due to the high heat involved and having to enter the atmosphere at precisely the right altitude, Wincer said.
“No matter what way you throw it (shuttlecock), it always falls to Earth in the same position and because of the feathers, it always falls more slowly.
The ‘feathers’ causes it (the spacecraft) to always enter the atmosphere at exactly the right position without any control of human beings and computers,” she said.
Wincer said SpaceShip One underwent three successful test flights in 2004. The spacecraft that would eventually take tourists into space, SpaceShip Two, will be unveiled by the end of this year.
The Spaceship Company, a joint venture between Virgin Group and Scaled Composites, has contracted Scaled Composites to design and build SpaceShip Two and the carrier aircraft, WhiteKnight Two. Galactic will own and operate at least five of the new spaceships and two carrier aircraft.
So far, 70 out of the 300 people who signed up for space travel with Virgin Galactic have undergone centrifuge training at the National Aerospace Training and Research Centre (NASTAR). The outward force created by the centrifuge was used to simulate the massive g-forces that they would experience during take-off.
“We took our first 70 customers whose ages ranged from 22 to 83 years, put them in the centrifuge and made them undergo quite high g-forces, much higher g-forces than what you actually have to experience on the flight, just to see what would happen,” Wincer said.
Both the 83-year-old and the 22-year-old were “just fine”, she said.
“We proved people wrong because they were saying this would never work. (They said) nobody over the age of 50 has ever been in a centrifuge; you have to be in peak condition to go into space and it is just not true. That’s what we wanted to prove; we wanted to prove that everybody could go,” said Wincer.
This article appeared on the Media & Advertising page, The Edge Financial Daily, August 6, 2009.