Designs of tourist space crafts unveiled

The countdown is on for the first fare-paying passengers to rocket into space. British billionaire Sir Richard Branson has unveiled designs of two crafts to take tourists into space.

Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, unveiled models of SpaceShipTwo and its accompanying mothership White Knight Two -- which aims to carry 6 passengers along with 2 pilots into space.

The White Knight Two mothership, believed to be the world's largest all-carbon composite aircraft, is expected to begin flight testing in the summer and SpaceShipTwo is almost 60 percent complete.

The space trips will leave from a launching pad to be built in New Mexico, and are expected to last a total of two and a half hours.

Passengers will be weightless for about 5 minutes. Trips will each cost about 200-thousand US dollars.

Branson expressed a vision of space travel that seems limitless. He believes private space travel can help answer key questions about Earth's climate and the mysteries of the universe.

Sir Richard Branson, Founder of the Virgin Group, said, "I think it could lead to orbital travel, it could lead to the most incredible kinds of hotels in space, it could lead to small little spaceships going around the moon and being able to view the moon from 100-200 foot above the surface and at some stage in the future I'm absolutely sure we'll be populating other planets and that's something which in 100 years time I think will be a real possibility."

More than 200 people have joined the company's team of future astronauts 80 have been through their medical assessment and centrifuge training.