Starship enterprise: the next generation.

There has been talk of commercial space flights and return trips to the Moon for sometime now, but some may be surprised just how close to reality such talk is becoming.

And using a two craft combination paying passengers may able to embark upon sub-orbital journeys by the end of the decade.

THE way Will Whitehorn tells it, the story began in 2003 in Mojave, California, on a visit to Scaled Composites, a company with a reputation for designing and building futuristic and sometimes wacky-looking aircraft. Mr Whitehorn is one of the top brass in Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group; and Virgin Atlantic, Sir Richard’s airline, was sponsoring Global Flyer, a Scaled Composites creation, on a non-stop voyage around the world. On his way out of the factory Mr Whitehorn saw something unusual and asked what it was. Burt Rutan, head of Scaled Composites, told him it was a spaceship. He was building it for another customer, but he couldn’t say any more.

Also featured in the article is an animation showing how the sub-orbital flights will reach “space”, and equally as importantly, return to terra firma.