A new era for space tourism may have come one small step closer. <br /> After 14 years of testing, Virgin Galactic's tourism spaceship successfully soared into the upper reaches of the Earth's atmosphere on Thursday, hitting a maximum altitude of 82-thousand-700 meters. <br />This is the first time a private firm has taken a man into space,... and with two pilots and four research payloads on board to simulate a real tourism flight, it's expected that this will be the start of the firm's revenue-earning space missions.<br />It's reported that the cost of "touring space" for 90 minutes is 250-thousand U.S. dollars, and already some 600 people have signed up for the trip. <br />
