Richard Branson is determined to take paying passengers to space. So determined, in fact, that Virgin Galactic has enlisted an elite group of accredited “space agents” to sell tickets at a starting price of $200,000.

In the Bay Area, Tony Cardoza [pictured, above] and Lynda Turley Garrett are two of three agents licensed to sell space flights, which they offer alongside African safari adventures. They have sold fewer than a handful of tickets between them, but they are convinced that sales will pick up as Virgin Galactic inches closer to launch.

Images from the first test flight of SpaceShip2

The official launch date isn’t confirmed, but it’s expected for 2013 or early 2014. The flight is about two hours, and travelers — which the agents refer to as “future astronauts” — will experience four minutes of weightlessness and have a picture taken with the curvature of the Earth in the background.

A little-known fact is that if you don’t have $200,000 in the bank when you sign up for Virgin Galactic; you can save a seat with a $20,000 deposit and pay the rest when you receive a space date.

What’s it like to be one of the first “space agents?” Turley Garrett is a self-described space nut who has gone through months of training to sell less than a handful of tickets. “I wanted to be at the cutting-edge of travel,” she said. In the next decade or so, she expects to see the birth of space tourism, and with that, an influx of space agents.

Turley Garrett is an expert about space flight and the technology behind it. She describes two vehicles: the mother craft and space craft, which are hooked together on a hinge. The mother craft carries the space craft until the rocket ignites and you’re projected straight up in the air for 90 seconds. You’ll reach 68 miles above the earth. At that point, you’ll unstrap and float around for several minutes, before the space craft glides back to earth.

Today, approximately 120 space agents are licensed to sell tickets. Some countries, like Japan, have just one agent. In California, eight agents cater to movie stars and tech entrepreneurs (Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, and Stephen Hawking have signed up), the largest cluster in the world.

Richard Branson and Turley Garrett at a Virgin Galactic training.

As part of the intense training program, the agents meet with test pilots, visit New Mexico to see the Spaceport, and get educated about the Virgin Group. Every month, they receive a call from Virgin Galactic, and are asked to report on their progress.

The space agents aren’t disheartened by the lack of sales. “I’m assuming the business will come,” said Cardoza, who has only sold three tickets. He believes that safety concerns aren’t the biggest issue. The problem is that people are still a little incredulous. “Our future astronauts are waiting to see something more concrete,” he said.

With this logic, the space agents should expect an influx of business. Virgin Galactic’s suborbital SpaceShipTwo just conducted its first successful flight test above the Mojave Desert, bringing us one step closer to private spaceflight.

Still on the fence? The space agents tell me that those who sign up early can tap into a community and attend private events with Branson; the Virgin chief and his family are some of the passengers on the first flight.

Who are the space agents selling to? Tech entrepreneurs

The space agents have had most success selling to tech entrepreneurs with a keen sense of adventure and millions of dollars in the bank. About half the people who have signed up for Virgin Galactic are tech CEO’s or entrepreneurs, according to Cardoza.

“Virgin picked us based on our access to clientele who would be able to afford something like this,” said Cardoza, who has been selling tickets for two years. “In terms of sales, the tech sector is number one.”

“Future astronaut” and Amazon employee Lori Fraleigh.

Lori Fraleigh, who works for Amazon subsidiary Lab 126, will be travelling to space in the next year or two. To the envy of her friends, Fraleigh’s husband purchased a ticket for her birthday. Already, the future astronauts from the Bay Area have formed a community, and meet in-person at various Virgin Galactic events. Most of them are in tech.

“Im excited about the innovation in the private sector in terms of access to space” Fraleigh told me. “But by the time my kids grow up, it will be more commonplace and available to anyone.”

Perhaps we’ll meet there.

I want to go to space. Bad. Bad enough, if fact, to enter a social media contest (ugh!) and spam my friends on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ (double-ugh). Bad enough to like a personal odor control product — Axe Body Spray.

Yeah, that’s the one in the commercials where the guy sprays himself with deodorant and hot girls pop out of impossible places to get their hands on this suddenly irresistibly luscious dude. Unrealistic and sexist in the extreme, I know, even if it is every red-blooded hetero guy’s dream.

Vote for Pedro!

But I’m gritting my teeth and bearing it (and maybe you should too) because Axe is running a contest to send 22 people to space. I could be one of them … and so could you. All you have to do is sell your social media soul and whore your connections out to Unilever, which owns the Axe brand, in an attempt to gain precious votes.

The winner will travel 103 kilometers (64 miles) up from planet Earth and out of the atmosphere into space in an SXC space plane with only the pilot for company. The ship is less than 30 feet long and powered by four XR-5K18 liquid fueled re-ignitable rocket engines, giving it 11,600 pounds of thrust. And you’ll have an amazing 12-foot wide cockpit window to see deep space — and the blue planet below — in all its glory.

The trip of a lifetime? I think so:

If you enter and are lucky enough to win the first stage, you’ll need to attend “Global Space Camp” in Orlando, Florida during December 2013, where you’ll meet international contestants and compete for the chance to go to space. Competing involves traveling in a supersonic jet plane, experiencing zero-G in a short parabolic airplane flight, and being tested in a massive centrifuge that will put your body under 6Gs of acceleration.

Little hint: barf and you’re probably out.

Those who pass the tests will then continue on to the little Caribbean island of Curaçao, where they’ll take off in the SXC space plane and experience space flight firsthand. Tickets for that little 60-mile trip, by the way, start out at $95,000. Fortunately, Axe is picking up the tab — if you win.

Enter here. Or, you could just vote for me.

SpaceX’s successful docking into the International Space Station may have ushered in a new era of spaceflight, but the success of the trip also bumped the company’s valuation into a higher orbit.

SpaceX made history last week when it became the first privately held company to dock a spacecraft on the International Space Station. According to financial data company Privco, that milestone was enough to push SpaceX’s worth to $4.8 billion, up from the $2.4 billion valuation before the mission.

PrivCo bases its numbers on SpaceX’s past and future — its recent successes, and rather busy launch schedule over the next few years. SpaceX has fifty-five launches planned through 2017, most of which are for commercial satellites. SpaceX is also contracted with NASA for a dozen resupply missions to the ISS.

But it wants more. According to SpaceX spokeswoman Kirstin Brost Grantham, the company’s next big step would be landing a contract with NASA to bring astronauts to and from the space station, which it hopes to do by 2015.

Total values for these contracts already top $4 billion, so clearly, SpaceX is going to be busy (and making money) for some time to come.

But what about its IPO ambitions? Grantham says those aren’t on the horizon right now: SpaceX is almost entirely committed currently to working out a regular rhythm for its launches — which means don’t expect the company to go public any time soon.

Speaking of IPOs, in a clear jab at Facebook, PrivCo said that SpaceX’s valuation in relation to post-IPO Facebook is reason enough for investors to look beyond Silicon Valley for investments.

It’s one of the first of several launches for the company as part of a 12-flight cargo mission to supply the International Space Station now that the U.S. space shuttle program has ended. SpaceX secured $1.6 billion in funding to run the mission.

“I think it’s a really exciting time for space, because for the first time in several decades we had a very real prospect of fielding multiple human space vehicles,” Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides told VentureBeat. “That’s good for the U.S., it encourages innovation and also provides more than one option, which means it’s more reliable.”

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is currently discussing developing an in-line, disposable space vehicle that would put between 70 and 130 tons of cargo into orbit. Those rockets are primarily planned for exploration beyond low-Earth orbit, Whitesides said. But there’s plenty of room for a company to handle cargo missions and sub-orbital travel, he said.

There’s also room for companies that specialize in space tourism, like Virgin Galactic. That company sells tickets for flights in sub-orbital paths above the Earth for around $200,000, while there are companies in Russia that sell tickets for orbital flights for around $65 million each ticket.

“My sense is that we’ll (Virgin Galactic) be the next american company that sends humans into space,” he said. “Obviously it’s sub-orbital versus orbital, but I think our general expectation whether it’s sub-orbital or orbital is that over time prices will come down.”

SpaceX is one of two companies NASA has contracted to fly cargo missions to the International Space Station now that the shuttle program has ended. NASA has also contracted Orbital Sciences to launch cargo missions to the space station.

SpaceX has raised $500 million from investors and $300 million in funding from NASA. The company was the first to send a private space capsule into orbit and bring it back to Earth in December.