For $200,000 you could buy a ticket of Virgin Galactic and travel to space for over three days for a 2-hour flight beyond Earth's atmosphere that will culminate in five minutes in space. Virgin Galactic, billionaire Richard Branson's space travel venture, plans to order five more spaceships and aims to turn a profit in five years from its commercial launch in 2010, an official told Reuters on Thursday. Prospective space travelers have so far placed deposits totaling more than $31 million for tickets that cost $200,000 each. About 80,000 people from 120 countries have shown interest in these commercial space flights that are likely to start in 2010. Seriously interested travelers are asked to deposit at least $20,000, according to Virgin Galactic's Web site.

Virgin Galactic is one of several high-profile contenders in the new commercial space race. Others include Astrium, the space arm of European aerospace firm EADS, Blue Origin, started by Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos, Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX), created by PayPal founder Elon Musk, and Bigelow Aerospace, a venture aimed at creating space hotels, started by hotelier Robert Bigelow.

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