Virgin Galactic Spaceship 2 animation( click on Picture to watch the demo)After talks throughout 2004, on September 24, 2004 Virgin Galactic signed a deal worth up to US$21 million with Mojave Aerospace Ventures to license the intellectual property behind the Tier One project for purposes of space tourism. The deal was announced by Branson and Burt Rutan on September 27, 2004 at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London. The initial plan is for Rutan to design and build five suborbital tourist craft based on a scaled-up version of SpaceShipOne. Construction began in 2005, with six months of intensive testing (comprising at least 50-100 test flights) planned for 2007. Actual spaceflights for ordinary citizens are expected to begin on the SpaceShipTwo VSS Enterprise in Upham, New Mexico in early 2009.
