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American space tourist company Virgin Galactic left netizens in disbelief after it announced launching its first commercial space flight, just days after the Titan submarine imploded with five passengers while taking a trip to the Titanic wreckage in North Atlantic.
On June 26, 2023, the company shared a press release that said that the Galactic 01 mission would take three passengers from the Italian Air Force and the National Research Council into space. Along with them, five Virgin Galatic crew members - four pilots and one astronaut instructor - will also be onboard.
As per a notice uploaded on its official website, the space tourism company has priced this space trip for a whopping $450,000 each for future commercial space flights.
The press release state that the mission's objective is to "conduct a series of suborbital science experiments" during the 90-minute space ride, which is scheduled to launch on June 29.
However, the news of the space tourist company launching a trip did not sit right with some of the netizens as they were left in disbelief. One of them commented:
Twitter reacts to Virgin Galactic's commercial spaceflight
After the news of Virgin Galactic launching a commercial spaceflight for a whopping $450,000 per person went viral, Twitterati was shocked. Several users shared memes and GIFs expressing their shock on the initiative, which comes a week after five passengers vanished after the Titan submarine imploded.
Others raised their eyebrows at the price per seat and mocked spending money on something that could lead to a person's death.
On June 26, the official Twitter handle of the space tourism company announced the names of the crew members that would be a part of the mission. The members are - Col. Walter Villadei and Lt. Col. Angelo Landolfi from the Italian Air Force, Pantaleone Carlucci from National Research Council of Italy, Virgin Galactic astronaut Colin Bennett, VSS Unity pilots Mike Masucci and Nicola Pecile, and VMS Eve pilots Kelly Latimer and Jameel Janjua.
The company's headquarters are located in New Mexico's Spaceport America. As per Marca, the CEO of Virgin Galactic, Michael Colglazier, said that the company offers two types of space missions - one of scientific research, and another for "private astronauts."
In 2021, the Federal Aviation Administration finally gave the company permission to take paid customers on short trips to space. It made its conclusive test trip in New Mexico last month.
This is not the first time that space tourism has raised concerns among people. During a November 2014 test flight of Virgin Galactic's prototype spacecraft, one crew member was killed when the craft blew up over the Mojave Desert.
In April 2023, a rocket by Elon Musk's SpaceX blew up into a fireball when it tried to go into space for the first time.
