Virgin Group Chairman Richard Branson unveiled a model of the spaceship he hopes will be the first to take commercial passengers into space on Wednesday as part of his space tourism venture, Virgin Galactic. Two thousand eight is going to be the year of the spaceship.

Therefore a group of rich tourists may start visiting space within a few years in th spacecraft that looks like a cross between a corporate jet and something out of science fiction. Richard Branson calls it SpaceShip Two. The spacecraft will ascend to about 62 miles above sea level — technically the lower limits of space — and then fall back to Earth. The sub-orbital trips, depicted here in an artist’s rendering, will take about two and a half hours and will include about 4 1/2 minutes of weightlessness.

So far more than 200 people have signed up for the rides on the craft.. The tickets cost about $200,000 apiece and have attracted a number of celebrity passengers such as astrophysicist Stephen Hawking and former soap star Victoria Principal. SpaceShipTwo, will take off from a special launch pad in New Mexico.