IMAGES of the remote New Mexico spaceport built to house the world's first "tourist" spaceship by Virgin Galactic have been revealed.
Sir Richard Branson has marked the completion of the main runway at Spaceport America, near the town of Las Cruces where the Virgin Galactic project is based.
Spaceport America is the world's first facility designed specifically to launch commercial spacecraft.
The circular-shaped aircraft hangar and passenger terminal will be incorporated into the same building, which will be three floors high, include a public viewing gallery of 372 square metres and a viewing balcony of 159 square metres.
The airfield is 277,594 square metres and the runway is 61 metres wide by 3048 metres long. It is designed to support almost every aircraft in the world.
"From here we will see, perhaps daily flights into space, but also scientists, explorers of new opportunities beyond our planet,'' Mr Branson said of the project.
"I am very happy that civilians will be able to reach space. I'd like to be one of the passengers on these flights, of course,'' Buzz Aldrin, the second man to set foot on the moon, said.
Until now space travel has been limited to astronauts and a handful of wealthy people paying millions for the experience on board Russian rockets.
Tickets for SpaceShipTwo cost $US200,000 ($202,000). For the price travellers get two half-hours flights, with about five minutes of weightlessness.
Around 380 people have made desposits, totalling over $US50 million ($50.3 million).
Russian Igor Kutsenko, 36, an advertising company boss, said he plans to go into space with his 57-year-old mother and 59-year-old father.
"We will travel together as soon as Virgin Galactic makes space travel a reality. This has been the dream of my life,'' he said, adding that he had paid a deposit of $US150,000 ($152,000) each.
Once it has reached suborbital space, SpaceShipTwo passengers will be able to view the Earth from portholes next to their seats, or unbuckle their seatbelts and float in zero gravity.
Branson said that, while initially the spaceship will remain suborbital, "in time we'll go to orbital flights. And, you know, one day... we hope to build a hotel in space,'' he added.
Virgin officials are "also thinking about intercontinental travel at a fraction of the time that it currently takes to go from, you know, say America to Australia".
The spaceport's terminal hanger facility is expected to be completed by next year.
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