VIRGIN TO BOOK SPACEFLIGHTS BRANSON JOINS ALLEN BEHIND ROCKETEER RUTAN.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

MOJAVE - Billionaires Richard Branson and Paul Allen and aircraft designer Burt Rutan teamed up Monday to create a spacecraft that could begin carrying paying passengers before the end of the decade.

Using technology developed for the Allen-financed SpaceShipOne - which went into space June 21 and is poised to do it again Wednesday - Rutan is working on a design for a spaceship for a new Branson company called Virgin Galactic.

``We hope to create thousands of astronauts over the next few years and bring alive their dream of seeing the majestic beauty of our planet from above, the stars in all their glory and the amazing sensation of weightlessness,'' said Branson, founder of Virgin Atlantic airlines.

Spaceflight tickets are expected to start at around $190,000 - for about four minutes of weightlessness. Branson expects 3,000 people will pay to go into space in the first five years they can buy tickets.

How many passengers the new ship could carry on each trip was not disclosed, but Branson envisions the flights to be similar to one aboard Rutan's SpaceShipOne rocket plane.

The Virgin spaceship will be carried aloft by a mother ship and then released to rocket into space at roughly 2,100 mph. Passengers will be able to look down on the Earth and experience weightlessness before the spacecraft glides back to the spaceport.

Passengers would get at least three days of training for a flight.

Branson also plans to back Rutan's Mojave-based Scaled Composites company in developing a longer-flying spacecraft capable of two-hour journeys in space.

``Apart from building SpaceShipOne for Paul and then watching it fly to space on June 21, this is one of the most exciting days of my life,'' Rutan wrote in a printed statement about the agreement. ``Our June spaceflight was flown with several new technologies that address both the cost and safety of manned space flight.''

Allen, a Microsoft co-founder who owns the Seattle Seahawks football team and Portland Trail Blazers basketball team, said he backed the SpaceShipOne development ``because I saw this as a great opportunity to demonstrate that space exploration could someday be within the reach of private citizens.''

The agreement is potentially worth $21.5 million over the next 15 years, depending on the number of spaceships built by Virgin, according to the announcement. Developing the spaceships and ground support facilities could cost $100 million.

Construction could begin next year on the first Virgin spaceship, called VSS Enterprise. Suborbital spaceflights could start in 2 1/2 to three years.

SpaceShipOne made history on June 21 when it took off from Mojave Airport and flew 62 miles above Earth, becoming the first privately funded, privately developed manned spaceship.

SpaceShipOne is scheduled to vie for the $10 million Ansari X Prize with a pair of suborbital flights over the next two weeks. The first of two flights in pursuit of the prize is scheduled for Wednesday with the second occurring perhaps as early as the following Monday.

Jim Skeen, [phone]

james.skeen(at)dailynews.com

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(color) Virgin Atlantic airline mogul Richard Branson, left, talks with rocket plane designer Burt Rutan earlier this year in Mojave. Branson signed a deal announced Monday for Virgin spaceflights.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer