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The announcement comes just days after Jeff Bezos-backed Blue
Origin announced that its New Shepard Rocket, which flies cargo
and humans on short trips to the edge of space, would resume
flights on Sunday, ending a near two-year pause of crewed
operations.
CAS Space said that its vehicle will include a tourist cabin
that has four panoramic windows and can carry seven passengers
per flight. The company plans to arrange a launch every 100
hours from a newly-built aerospace theme park, with ten vehicles
available to take tourists to the edge of space in shifts.
Tickets will cost 2 million to 3 million yuan ($415,127) per
person per trip, state media said.
Guangzhou-based CAS Space was founded in 2018 and its
second-largest shareholder is China's biggest state research
institute, the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
China's space exploration program has recently narrowed the gap
with the United States and could become the first country to
return samples from the far side of the moon after it launched
the Chang'e-6 mission earlier this month.
That launch attracted hordes of tourists to the launch site on
China's island province of Hainan. Before blast-off tens of
thousands of people gathered in different viewing spots near the
launch site, causing long traffic jams.
($1 = 7.2267 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Eduardo Baptista; Editing by Sonali Paul)
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