Plans for Space Tourism News Anchor: As the space shuttle program comes to an end, so many people are asking, what's next? British business tycoon Richard Branson has one answer. He is planning the world's first commercial space tourism service. And CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann sat down with the Virgin Group CEO to get the details. Dialogue: And zero and liftoff. Mark Straussman: As one era ends and the aging shuttle fleet retires, Straussman: a new opportunity begins-- private space travel. Dialogue: Release, release, release. Straussman: Space tourism as a business, for someone bold enough to jump at it. Richard Branson: Going to be the beginning of a whole new era of spaceship travel which will bring spaceship travel, I think, to reality for thousands of people, rather than just a few hundred. Straussman: In 1990, Sir Richard Branson, the British billionaire and adventurer, registered the name Virgin Galactic. After his innovative and successful career in traditional airlines as well as telecommunications and music, Branson is now setting out to conquer the final frontier and realize a lifelong dream. Straussman (speaking to Branson): Where did your fascination or interest in space begin? Branson: The moon landing. I was quite young. Neil Armstrong: That's one small step for man-- Branson: I mean, it was one of those momentous moments in your life. Armstrong: One giant leap for mankind. Branson: I was absolutely sure that I was going to go to the moon sometime soon thereafter. And the years rolled by and it soon became apparent that NASA hadn't really got a big interest in sending you, me, or Joe Public up into space. Branson: And so I was determined to do something about it. Straussman: And in 2004, his determination paid off. Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites, the company now contracted to Virgin Galactic, built the first private manned space vehicle named SpaceShipOne and flew it successfully into space. Today, Rutan is now contracted to build five SpaceShipTwos for Virgin Galactic. Matt Steinmetz: You can actually see some widgets up on the top. Straussman (speaking to Steinmetz): Widget is a technical term, widgets. Straussman: Matt Steinmetz is the program's manager in charge. It's just kind of this unreal thing that brings back the glory days of early aviation when just people were doing new and bizarre stuff. Dialogue: Release, release, release. Straussman: That new stuff is new technology that allows the spaceship to re-enter the atmosphere safely. Virgin Galactic Employee: Imagine a spaceship that can travel at 3 and 1/2 times the speed of sound, but can also fold itself in half. The wing of that SpaceShipTwo articulates upwards. And what that does is it sets the vehicle up for a safe re-entry. Straussman: The unique wing feathering design was what propelled Branson to believe he had built a safe enough vehicle to start booking seats into space. But for most people, the cost to fly still makes space travel just a dream-- $200,000 a seat. And yet already, Virgin Galactic has banked more than $55 million in reservations. Six passengers at a time will board the private jet-sized spaceship attached to the mothership. Together, they'll climb to 60,000 feet, where the spaceship will be dropped and a rocket will launch it into space, traveling three times the speed of sound. Within minutes, the roller coaster sensation will end, and everything will be silent and weightless. Branson: Once in space, they'll unbuckle. They'll float around. They'll look through these giant windows that we've got in our spaceship back at the Earth. And they'll have the biggest grin of their faces. Straussman: Brian Binnie has had the experience firsthand. Seven years ago, he piloted SpaceShipOne into space. Binnie: You got the black sky above and then separating these two improbable extremes is a thin blue electric ribbon of light. That's the atmosphere. And it's all yours for the taking. It's just, wow. Straussman: It's an experience Branson himself is eager for. Branson: Look, I have to pinch myself to realize that we built a spaceship that we plan to go up in in a year's time. And that's something which I could only have dreamt of when I saw the moon landing all those years ago. Straussman (speaking to the news anchor): Mark strassmann, CBS News, Mojave, California. News Anchor: Branson believes the price of a ticket to space will drop to $25,000 within 15 years, and that commercial space travel will one day be as routine as a transatlantic airline flight.