Virgin Galactic has already sold 100 tickets for its first commercial trip into space, but now one customer is asking for a refund. According to the Canadian Press, venture capitalist Alan Walton wants a refund for his $200,000 ticket because of his advancing age and concern over the project delays.
This was a decision I wish I didn’t have to make,” Walton said after his 75th birthday this past spring. But “it was time.”
Walton waited for seven years to fly aboard the Virgin Galactic spaceline, first purchasing his ticket in 2004 when the experimental Space Ship One launched over the Mojave Desert. The spacecraft was then the first privately financed, manned flight into space and won the $10 million Ansari X Prize later that year.
Immediately afterward, Virgin Galactic began taking reservations for a commercial flight that was first predicted to take off in 2007. Walton was one of the “founders”—the name given to the first 100 customers to purchase tickets—but now he won’t be aboard after all.
According to the Canadian Press, Walton has already trekked to the North Pole, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and skydived over Mount Everest. He has since decided to invest part of his person fortune in genome-mapping scientists J. Craig Venter’s quest to create artificial life.
