Last month, billionaire Jeff Bezos launched himself into space on a 60-foot-tall penis rocket for just 11 minutes as an unsettling display of wealth. Now, Virgin Galactic is offering up a chance for you to do the same – as long as you’re willing to pay the $450k per seat cost. What a steal!  

On July 11, the space tourism company sent its founder, Richard Branson, on an 88km-high flight to the edge of space (he’s also a billionaire, if you couldn’t guess). After his safe return, Virgin Galactic received US aviation approval to fly “regular” civilians. 

“We’re here to make space more accessible to all,” said Branson, shortly after his flight landed. “Welcome to the dawn of a new space age.” 

With its first flight scheduled for September, Virgin Galactic will begin by offering flights to the company’s “significant” list of “early hand-raisers”, before opening single seat, multi-seat, and full-flight buyout options to all customers.

During his own flight, the CEO gave a motivational speech encouraging kids to dream. “I was once a child with a dream looking up to the stars. Now, I’m an adult in a spaceship with lots of other wonderful adults looking down to our beautiful, beautiful Earth,” he said. “To the next generation of dreamers, if we can do this, just imagine what you can do.”

According to The Guardian, however, rocket launches produce up to 300 tonnes of carbon dioxide which adds up to more than a car would produce in centuries of driving. Therefore, casual space travel could have detrimental effects on the ozone layer – which Branson seems to have conveniently left out of his speech.

The risks, however, don’t seem to be slowing down the space race. So far this year, Elon Musk admitted his plans to send humans to Mars via SpaceX by 2026, even though he guessed “a bunch of people will probably die”. Sounds promising. 

Otherwise, Space Perspective announced that mega-rich people can go for a £90k balloon ride to space, and rapper Lil Uzi Vert even allegedly announced on Twitter that he’s attempting to buy his own planet, which scientists debunked as “bogus”.