We are facing the dawn of a new travel era. No longer getaways are realized within the atmosphere of our planet. The adventurous explorer can now step forward for rich vacationers, though it will be enormous expenses for their budget. There comes the time of space tourism.

Virgin Galactic has recently informed that the construction of a $200m space station in New Mexico will be a fact rather than a fantasy. The climate and scarce state population add to the area’s attractiveness for such a centre, and the government has made it a desirable deal.

And why should tourists fly into space, and not spend two weeks in the Maldives? The reason is that space is actually the ultimate frontier of tourism. Though it seems futurism and vague objectives, enormous progress in technology in the last couple of decades make the idea more real. Tourists have already launched into space with the help of Virgin; now all they have to do is to decrease somehow the costs and make the experience a bit more accessible.

You can expect a thrilling, though rather short, tour of the whole lifetime. Originally, you will be taken from the closest major city and brought to the space station. There you will go through about 6 days of training and preparation. When you finally “takeoff”, the spaceship will go as fast as you can only imagine into space where you can look down at North America (1000 miles in every direction). But you won’t spend there much time, and at 50,000 ft the craft will begin to slither down to earth. All that, actually, will take place in relative comfort.

Virgin Galactic is so sure about the project that they have even published the plans for what will you do on landing. They claim that you may have a magnificent gala dinner, or be awarded astronaut wings. All the video and photographic images you made in the space will be first thing you show all your friends, guests and of course your kids and grandkids.

You haven’t misunderstood; you may get there before your children. The first scheduled flights will happen in 2008, but the evident novelty means that a seat will cost you something about $200,000. This is relatively inexpensive. Actually, it likely would be more expensive to rent Richard Branson’s private island in its wholeness.

Will space travel turn into the new luxury escape? Though it won’t be the lengthiest getaway of your life, but in the next decade or so, it would be a must to have astronaut wings.