I'm A Rocket Granny, Burning My Candle Out Here Alone

[Tuckerfan]

VirginGalactic releases it’s first 100 passengers list.

Although its putative tourist spacecraft may not be off the drawing board yet, a confident Virgin Galactic revealed the “founder’s group” which will be flying from the port near Roswell, New Mexico – fabled as the site of a supposed UFO crash in 1947.

The 100 people include a woman in her nineties (who learned to skydive when she was 85), and a honeymooning couple from Washington DC. “George and Loretta are a charming couple who want to be the first honeymoon couple in space. So they are happy to delay their wedding till the day of the flight,” says Stephen Attenborough, head of astronaut relations at Virgin Galactic.

(emphasis mine)

More details on the new spaceport can be found here.

According to an Associated Press (AP) account of today’s press event, Branson has worked a deal with New Mexico that involves a 20-year lease on the spaceport, a facility that is price tagged at $225 million to build.

Virgin would make yearly payments of $1 million for the first five years, putting in more money in following years to cover the cost of the project by the end of the lease, the AP reported.

New Mexico Economic Development Secretary Rick Homans said at the London press briefing that funding to build the state’s spaceport—following Environmental Impact Statement approval and a governmental licensing of the spaceport—would come from a mix of local, state and federal sources.

You know, I really like hot, desert climates.