The ticket window is open again for space flights at Virgin Galactic, with prices starting at $450,000 a seat. The space-tourism company said Thursday it is making progress toward beginning revenue flights next year. It will sell single seats, package deals and entire flights. Virgin Galactic announced the offerings as it reported Thursday that it lost $94 million in the second quarter on soaring costs for overhead and sales. The company posted revenue of $571,000, barely enough to cover one seat on a future flight. Also read: Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson flying own rocket to space The company’s most noteworthy recent achievement came last month, after the quarter ended, when founder Richard Branson and five crewmates soared to 53.5 miles (86 kilometers) above the New Mexico desert. CEO Michael Colglazier said the company resumed sales on Thursday to take advantage of a surge in consumer interest after the flight by Branson, who beat rival billionaire Jeff Bezos and his Blue Origin ship into space by nine days. The company based in Las Cruces, New Mexico, won regulatory approval in June to fly people into space. Virgin Galactic said “early hand-raisers” will get first priority to book seats, and another list will be created for new customers. The company’s next spaceflight is scheduled for late September in New Mexico with the Italian air force. Also read: Blue Origin’s Bezos reaches space on 1st passenger flight Virgin Galactic said it ended the quarter with cash and equivalents totaling $552 million. The results were released after the stock market closed. The company’s shares were up nearly 5% in after-hours trading.

An 18-year-old is about to become the youngest person in space, rocketing away with an aviation pioneer who will become the oldest at age 82. Blue Origin announced Thursday that instead of a $28 million auction winner launching with founder Jeff Bezos on Tuesday, the Dutch son of another bidder will be on board. The company said Oliver Daemen will be the first paying customer, but did not disclose the price of his ticket. But a family spokesperson said it will be considerably less than the winning bid. Daemen snagged the fourth and last seat on the space capsule after the auction winner stepped aside because of a scheduling conflict. The offer came in a surprise phone call from Blue Origin last week, he said. Also read: Bezos' Blue Origin gets OK to send him, 3 others to space “This is so unbelievably cool!” Daemen said in a statement. “The flight to and into space only takes 10 minutes, but I already know that these will be the most special 10 minutes of my life.” He added in a video posted by Dutch broadcaster RTL: “I am super excited to experience zero-g and see the world from above.” Also on Blue Origin’s first launch with passengers: Bezos’ brother and Wally Funk, one of 13 female pilots who went through the same tests in the early 1960s as NASA’s Mercury 7 astronauts but never made it into space because only men were allowed. The four will blast off from West Texas atop a New Shepard rocket for a 10-minute flight. The Amazon founder will become the second person to ride his own rocket into space, following Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson by nine days. The teen tourist was going to be on the second launch for paying customers, according to Blue Origin. But once the auction winner dropped out, the company seized on the idea of flying the oldest and youngest people in space on the same flight, the family spokesperson noted. Also read: Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson flying own rocket to space His undisclosed ticket cost will be donated to charity, just as most of the winning $28 million was distributed this week to a variety of space education and advocacy groups. “This marks the beginning of commercial operations for New Shepard, and Oliver represents a new generation of people who will help us build a road to space,” Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith said in a statement. Blue Origin has yet to open ticket sales to the public or disclose its anticipated prices. That’s expected following the upcoming flight. Daemen took a year off after graduating from high school last year to obtain his private pilot’s license. He’ll attend the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands in September. His father is Joes Daemen, founder and CEO of Somerset Capital Partners, a private equity firm in Oisterwijk, Netherlands. Both father and son were on their way to Texas on Thursday to prepare for the launch, according to their spokesperson.. The elder Daemen said he bid on the seat during the June 12 auction. “But when the bids started to skyrocket during the auction, we dropped out,” he said in a statement. Blue Origin said the unidentified auction winner will catch a future flight. Daemen already has gotten some good space-traveling advice from Dutch astronaut and two-time space flier Andre Kuipers. According to the statement, Kuipers told him “not to make the classic mistake of taking pictures in the short time he is up, but to fully enjoy the view of our beautiful planet.” Soviet cosmonaut Ghermon Titov holds the record for the youngest to fly in space. He was 25 when he blasted into orbit four months after Yuri Gagarin, the first person in space. John Glenn was 77 when he launched aboard space shuttle Discovery in 1998, 37 years after becoming the first American to orbit the world.

After a lifetime of yearning to fly in space, Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson was poised to blast off aboard his own rocket ship Sunday in his boldest, grandest adventure yet. The thrill-seeking billionaire joined five company employees also assigned to the test flight to the edge of space high above the southern desert of New Mexico. Ever the showman, Branson dramatically counted down the days to liftoff via Twitter. He viewed the brief up-and-down trip as a confidence builder — not only for the 600-plus people already holding reservations and waiting in the wings, but potential space tourists willing to plunk down a few hundred-thousand dollars for a shot at space. Also read: Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit reaches space on 2nd try The London-born founder of the Virgin Group, who turns 71 in a week, wasn’t supposed to fly until later this summer. But he assigned himself to an earlier flight after Blue Origin’s Jeff Bezos announced plans to ride his own rocket into space from West Texas on July 20. Virgin Galactic doesn’t expect to start flying customers before next year. Blue Origin has yet to open ticket sales or even announce prices, but late last week boasted via Twitter that it would take clients higher and offer bigger windows. Unlike Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which launch capsules atop reusable booster rockets, Virgin Galactic uses a twin-fuselage aircraft to get its rocket ship aloft. The space plane is released from the mothership about 44,000 feet (13,400 meters) up, then fires its rocket motor to streak straight to space. Maximum altitude is roughly 55 miles (70 kilometers), with three to four minutes of weightlessness provided. Also read: Richard Branson announces trip to space, ahead of Jeff Bezos The rocket plane — which requires two pilots — glides to a runway landing at its Spaceport America base. Virgin Galactic reached space for the first time in 2018, repeating the feat in 2019 and again this past May, each time with a minimal crew. It received permission from the Federal Aviation Administration last month to start launching customers.

Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson is aiming to beat fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos into space by nine days. Branson’s company announced Thursday evening that its next test flight will be July 11 and that its founder will be among the six people on board. The winged rocket ship will soar from New Mexico — the first carrying a full crew of company employees. It will be only the fourth trip to space for Virgin Galactic. The news came just hours after Bezos’ Blue Origin said Bezos would be accompanied into space on July 20 by a female aerospace pioneer who’s waited 60 years to rocket away. Also read: Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit reaches space on 2nd try Bezos chose July 20 as his West Texas launch date — the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. He assigned himself to the flight just a month ago, the final stretch in a yearslong race to space between the two rich rocketeers. Amazon’s founder will be on Blue Origin’s debut launch with people on board, accompanied by his brother, the winner of a $28 million charity auction and Wally Funk, one of the last surviving members of the Mercury 13 who was chosen as his “honored guest.” The 13 female pilots passed the same tests as NASA’s original Mercury 7 astronauts back in the early 1960s, but were barred from the corps — and spaceflight — because they were women. As late as Wednesday, Branson declined to say when he would ride into space because of restrictions placed on him by his publicly traded company. But he stressed he was “fit and healthy” to fly as soon as his engineers give him the go. “I’ve always been a dreamer. My mum taught me to never give up and to reach for the stars. On July 11, it’s time to turn that dream into a reality aboard the next @VirginGalactic,” he said via Twitter. Virgin Galactic launches its rocket ship from an aircraft, reaching an altitude of roughly 55 miles (88 kilometers). Blue Origin launches its New Shepard rocket from the ground, with its capsule soaring to about 66 miles (106 kilometers). Both those heights are considered the edge of space. By comparison, Elon Musk’s SpaceX launches its capsules — both crew and cargo — into orbit around Earth. Also read: Jeff Bezos will blast into space on rocket s 1st crew flight All three private space companies plan to take paying customers into space. SpaceX will be the first with a private flight coming up in September. Flights by Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin last about 10 minutes, with three or so minutes of weightlessness. But the returns are quite different: Virgin Galactic’s rocket plane glides to a landing on a runway, like NASA’s old space shuttles did, with a pair of pilots in charge. Blue Origin’s automated capsules parachute to the desert floor, similar to how NASA’s Mercury, Gemini and Apollo capsules made ocean splashdowns. Their spaceports are just 200 miles (320 kilometers) apart. Funk, at age 82, will become the oldest person to launch into space when Blue Origin takes its turn. “I’ll love every second of it. Whoooo! Ha-ha. I can hardly wait,” Funk said in an Instagram video posted by Bezos. “Nothing has ever gotten in my way,” she added. “They said, ‘Well, you’re a girl, you can’t do that.’ I said, ’Guess what, doesn’t matter what you are. You can still do it if you want to do it and I like to do things that nobody has ever done.” She’ll beat the late John Glenn, who set a record at age 77 when flying aboard space shuttle Discovery in 1998. Glenn pooh-poohed the idea of women flying in space, shortly after he became the first American to orbit the world in 1962. “No one has waited longer,” Bezos said via Instagram. “It’s time. Welcome to the crew, Wally.” Bezos is stepping down as Amazon’s CEO on Monday. Also read: Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, will step down as CEO Blue Origin has yet to announce ticket prices or when the public might strap into the spacious six-seat capsule. Its New Shepard rocket is named for Alan Shepard, the first American in space. Virgin Galactic has more than 600 reservations in the pipeline. These original tickets went for $250,000. The company will start accepting more following the upcoming flight with Branson. Keen to get to space, Funk reserved a seat years ago. Virgin Galactic plans three more test flights before taking up customers, Branson was initially supposed to be on the second demo coming up, but moved it up in an apparent bid to outdo Bezos. He said Wednesday, after his other company Virgin Orbit launched a batch of satellites, that it’s important for his customers to see him ride his rocket ship first, before they climb on board.