Beginning in a few years, Virgin Galactic plans to roll out commercial space flights at a price of $200,000.  Interested?  Fill out this form on the Virgin Galactic website and plan to deposit at least $20,000 to pave the way to a 5 minute space flight at 360,000 feet (68.5 miles above Earth).  If there's any equity left in your home in 2010, you can take the ride of your lifetime.

Now this is not a trip to the Moon or anything.  The Moon is about 240,000 miles from Earth.  But you will fly well above the internationally recognized definition of space, which is 62.5 miles (100 kilometers) above Earth.  And you will reach 10 to 12 times the altitude of a typical airline flight.

The flights will last 2 1/2 hours, including 5 minutes in space.  The spaceship will launch from a specially designed jet carrier aircraft "Mothership" in the air at around 50,000 feet.  The rocket will thrust you, 5 co-passengers and 2 pilots at a rate of 2500 mph, over 3 times the speed of sound.  At your point of destination you take off your seatbelt and experience the feeling of zero gravity and incredible views of Earth.

After completing your mission, you are officially an astronaut, definied as flying over 50 miles above Earth.  Only about 500 people worldwide are considered astronauts.today.

The Virgin Galactic website does not indicate if meals will be offered on these flights.  But at 3 to 4 Gs, I would need several Tang Screwdrivers to get through this trip.  Also, they did not say if carry on luggage is allowed.

Don't plan to fork over the $200K, stand in line, show your passport and fly to space.  Plan to spend 3 days in training prior to your flight.  Who knows, maybe they won't make you do the training again for your second flight. 

Start saving your money!  Tickets have been on sale since 2005.  The first 100 seats have sold out at the full price of $200,000.  The next 900 seats, which are expected to fly in the first year of launch, require $100,000 to $175,000 deposits.  The rest of us just need to lay out a $20,000 deposit to reserve a flight starting in probably 2011.