Virgin Galactic lands on $450,000 as starting price for space tourism

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Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. said Thursday it is selling seats connected its space-tourism flights for $450,000 and up, and reported a “surge successful user interest” pursuing its archetypal suborbital flight.

Virgin Galactic SPCE, +2.44% said its “private astronaut market” volition person 3 offerings, with $450,000 the cheapest enactment for a azygous seat. Virgin volition besides connection a multi-seat bundle for couples, friends oregon families, and a full-flight buyout, with the archetypal unfastened seats going to its “significant database of aboriginal hand-raisers,” and a follow-on precedence database for those funny successful reserving seats successful aboriginal spaceflights.

“As we endeavor to bring the wonderment of abstraction to a wide planetary population, we are delighted to unfastened the doorway to an wholly caller manufacture and user experience,” Chief Executive Michael Colglazier said successful a statement.

In July, Virgin’s laminitis Richard Branson and 5 crewmates flew to suborbital abstraction on the company’s VSS Unity rocket-powered spacecraft. Wall Street has estimated that abstraction tourism volition turn to a $8 cardinal marketplace by 2030, with Virgin its “leader.”

The banal jumped much than 5% successful the extended league Thursday contempt a wider-than-expected quarterly nonaccomplishment for the abstraction company.

Virgin reported a second-quarter nonaccomplishment of $94 million, oregon 39 cents a share, compared with a nonaccomplishment of $72 million, oregon 34 cents a share, successful the year-ago quarter. FactSet statement called for a nonaccomplishment of 33 cents a stock for the quarter. It besides reported gross of $571,000, supra statement for gross of $300,000.

Virgin’s adjacent spaceflight is targeted for precocious September, the institution said. As antecedently disclosed, the formation volition beryllium a paid ngo for the Italian Air Force.

The institution said it ended the 4th with a “strong” currency position, including currency and equivalents of $552 cardinal astatine the extremity of June.

Virgin said it continues to acquisition delays to its concern and operations owed to COVID-19, and that it continues to run nether strict wellness protocols.

The banal has gained astir 35% truthful acold this year, compared with gains of astir 18% for the S&P 500 scale SPX, +0.60%.

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