Morocco Travel Information

The escapades in space, hitherto the preserve of a handful of billionaires, will soon become more accessible to ordinary people: from 2010, the first tourists "ordinary" should be able to move closer to the stars.
Among them include the stewardess French Mathilde Epron, the lucky winner of a ticket to space as part of a contest organized by the Swiss food group Nestle. It may embark on board a space plane of the company Rocketplane 100 km above the Earth.
The American company is not alone in betting on a lucrative market that could "attract tens of thousands of tourists annually by the year 2020-2025", according to estimates by Hugues-Weywada Laporte, director of tourism programme Space at EADS Astrium.
Thirty companies are involved in the race for development of suborbital trips to enable tourists seeking thrills to live for a few minutes the adventure of weightlessness.
One of the more advanced is that of British tycoon Richard Branson: the project SpaceShipTwo his company Virgin Galactic was presented in January in New York and the first commercial flights are planned for late 2010.
Two hundred and fifty candidates to space, including two former french pilots, are in the running for a flight which will cost 200,000 dollars (about 125,000 euros). The shuttle SpaceShipTwo will be powered by a vessel "bearer" 110 km above the Earth to sustain its passengers five minutes of weightlessness.
In France, the "space agent" Virgin, Voyageurs du Monde, has recorded for the moment "zero score, but many applications", because "people expect to have technical details before booking," says his CEO Jean-Francois Rial.
Mr. Rial, who is himself leaving for space, is convinced that "space tourism is becoming more democratic, because the price of flights will drop eventually to 30,000 euros."
Concurrent Virgin, Astrium, a subsidiary of EADS, will finally launch its suborbital flights that from 2015, instead of 2012-2013, because they have cordoned off the financing of his project.
"We are in the process of discussions with industrial partners for funding of around one billion euros," says Laporte-Weywada before estimate that the round table meeting will be "early 2009".
Proponents of draft-aircraft rocket, which can take off with a single runway airport, "does not fear being late," relying on "a serious technology." For 150,000 to 200,000 euros, Astrium will propose flights to over 100 km altitude offering three minutes in weightlessness.
Some flights will be more accessible than another variant of space tourism, experienced since 2001 by five billionaires: with a cheque for 25 million dollars, they spent orbital stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS) after a training physically pushed.
Significantly cheaper parabolic flights should be proposed by the end of the year by the tour operator Nouvelles Frontieres french: a plane that climbs and descents alternates must obtain the passengers moments of weightlessness for a period of 20 seconds. Price: around 3,000 euros.
The aircraft, an Airbus A300 Zero-G, is operated for the time being for scientific purposes by Novespace, a partner in the tour. Prior to float its customers, Nouvelles Frontieres, however, must first overcome the "red tape", according to its CEO Jean-Marc Siano.

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