NASA will set aside $14 million to charter SpaceShipTwo, a suborbital passenger spaceship undergoing testing in California's Mojave Desert.
The U.S. Space agency joins about 450 tourists, the state of Florida and a handful of research organizations who want to take the five-minute jaunt beyond Earth's atmosphere. Commercial flights are expected to begin in late 2012 or 2013.
WIDE ANGLE: Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo
The six-passenger, two-pilot ship, owned by Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, is based on a prototype called SpaceShipOne, which won the $10-million Ansari X Prize in 2004 for becoming the first privately funded piloted spaceship to fly beyond the atmosphere.
NASA wants to charter the spaceship for research experiments under a contract with Virgin Galactic worth up to $14.5 million.
ANALYSIS: Virgin Galactic Snares NASA Shuttle Ops Guru
Also queuing up for rides: Purdue University, Space Florida, a state-backed economic development agency, the Challenger Center for Space Science Education and Southwest Research Institute, Virgin Galactic announced Monday at the dedication ceremony of its new operations center at Spaceport America in New Mexico.
Tags: NASA, Space Commercialization, Space Travel, Spaceflight
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