First Indian Space Tourist Gearing For Take Off

Taking tourism to greater heights, Santosh George Kulangara, a Keralite, is all set to become the first Indian space tourist.

Santosh, Managing Director of Labour India Publications, and producer of Sancharam, a popular weekly travel programme being aired on a Malayalam television channel, has traveled to nearly 50 countries in the past 10 years filming exciting new destinations for his viewers.

"This is a dream-come-true," Santosh told PTI over phone from Pala in Kottayam district.

He would be flying on board the Virgin Galactic's space ship, a venture of Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic.

"They have given confirmed registration number of 38 for undertaking the journey," he said.

During the registration, he had made a payment of $20,000 (about Rs 900,000).

The whole process took him two years. The contract was signed on February 26 this year. The flight charges are roughly around $200,000 (Rs 9,000,000) and are likely to be scaled down further, he said.

Santosh said in 2004, he heard about the Virgin Galactic space flights when it conducted three trials.

He contacted Virgin Galactic to say he was interested and was asked to wait. When he again contacted them in August last year, they took in his registration and sent him the terms and conditions and the flight charges.

The date of the journey has not yet been fixed. (Sify News)
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