OUT OF THIS WORLD

If you haven’t reserved your seat on Virgin Galactic yet, better stop dawdling―there are already 200 people in line ahead of you. Virgin CEO Richard Branson recently visited New York to unveil a scale model of his extraordinary two-stage space vehicle, designed by aeronautical visionary Burt Rutan. “2008 really will be the Year of the Spaceship,” Branson said, announcing that test flights of the carrier aircraft, WhiteKnightTwo, will begin this summer. SpaceShipTwo, with six passengers aboard, will hitch a ride to the stratosphere suspended beneath WhiteKnight’s massive wing. The spaceship then drops free and lights a rocket for an exhilarating ride into space. The experience will be “the most fabulous thing that you could imagine,” says Mike Melvill, and he should know―as pilot of SpaceShipOne, he was the world’s first commercial astronaut. Tickets, which can be purchased online, start at $200,000. Passenger flights could start as soon as 2009. (www.virgingalactic.com)