Final Tourist Frontier

Christchurch internet entrepreneur Mark Rocket was the first New Zealander to sign up for one of Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic space flights. The self-described space nut (he changed his surname from Stevens by deed poll) put down the required US$200,000 to buy one of the initial 100 seats more than a year ago, and expects to take off in early 2009. “It’s one of my lifetime goals to get into space,” he said in the NZ Herald, “I’ve always been interested in space travel and I had been following the development of the new generation of spacecraft very closely.” House of Travel has just been announced as NZ’s only accredited “space agent” for the tourist flights. “Kiwis are great travellers and they’re always looking for new experiences,” says the chain’s retail director Brent Thomas. Approximately a fifth of the 10,000 people who have registered an interest in Virgin’s space flights are from Australasia.