Want to go to space in 2019? Pack courage and $250,000

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Deep inside The Spaceship Company’s secretive Building 79, a man points to a rigid but lightweight panel made from carbon fiber that is the thickness of two decks of cards.

The absurdity of what he’s about to say makes him smile.

“There’s just about one inch between you and space,” says Enrico Palermo, president of Virgin’s The Spaceship Company, which is tasked with building the plane-like crafts that Virgin Galactic plans to use to take paying customers on a joyride into the cosmos next year.

“That’s it, one inch,” says Palermo, pointing at the thin hull material and shaking his head. “Amazing what humans can do.” Especially when it comes to space. Venturing into the cosmos has always packed a thrill, a risk, an adventure and a cost in both dollars and lives. Forever, it was down to government agencies and professional astronauts to pay that price and reap those rewards. But no longer.

If all goes to plan, though admittedly little in the realm of space exploration does, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic could be the first of a few tech-titan-fueled private space ventures to blast ordinary humans into space and return them safely to Earth.

Whether Virgin Galactic becomes merely a thrill ride for those with $250,000 for a ticket or a giant leap for mankind remains a looming question.

For his part, Branson is confident his new company will be both, a unique adventure whose payoff — the so-called Overview Effect, where humans gape in wide-eyed awe at our big blue marble from 50 miles high — will generate a protective love of home.

“We will provide a platform for those (Virgin Galactic customers) to share their experiences and accelerate the global understanding of a fundamental truth, that we are essentially all in this together, fellow passengers on spaceship Earth,” Branson says in an email exchange.

“I am,” he adds, “one of those who feels reasonably optimistic for the future of planet Earth as a good place for humans to live, despite the huge challenges.”

With his “leave Earth to appreciate it” mission statement, Branson is taking a tack that differs from that of Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, whose Blue Origin rocket company envisions humans living and working in space, or SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who famously is aiming for human colonization of Mars.

But where Blue Origin officials say only that tickets go on sale next year for its autonomous space ride and SpaceX has plans to send up a lone customer as more of a one-off venture, Virgin Galactic is making noises that 2019 could bring regular customer trips out of its futuristic Spaceport in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.