This is what you get for  $250,000 – a seat with a view on board Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity for a  suborbital flight 60 miles above Earth.

Virgin says it has 600 customers signed up to fly.

Sir Richard is said to be going on the first commercial flight, but no date for it has been given.

The trip into space is scheduled to take  90 minutes.

VSS Unity is attached to a larger plane which takes off with it and then the spaceship detaches itself from the larger plane and goes on to the edge of space. Virgin Galactic successfully completed the second SpaceShipTwo test flight, of Unity (right), from Spaceport America in New Mexico in June.

Last October, Virgin Galactic merged with Social Capital Hedosophia, an acquisition vehicle run by former Facebook  exec, now and VC, Chamath Palihapitiya.

The company also recently signed a Space Act Agreement with NASA’s Johnson Space Center which involves encouraging “commercial participation in orbital human spaceflight” to the International Space Station (ISS). Under the agreement, Virgin Galactic will also develop a private orbital astronaut readiness programme.