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.”

Inspiration Mars, the first private mission to the Red Planet, will likely be a monumental achievement for humanity — and poop will help make it possible.

The two-person crew aboard the ship, which will fly by Mars in 2018, will rely on a shield of water, food, and human waste to protect them from cosmic rays, reports New Scientist. Inspiration Mars was announced last week and is headed up by multimillionaire Dennis Tito, who also reportedly paid $20 million to be the first private space tourist in 2001.

More so than muscle atrophy or sheer boredom, cosmic radiation is the biggest issue the crew will face on the trip. The waste would be dehydrated (to reclaim precious water) and placed into bags alongside the ship’s walls.

“It’s a little queasy sounding, but there’s no place for that material to go, and it makes great radiation shielding,” Taber MacCallum, a member of the Inspiration Mars team, told New Scientist.

It may sound kind of gross, but this is the sort of ingenuity we need to keep pushing space travel forward. And in a strange way, it may be similar to the creative methods early humans used to travel the sea.

Initially, the ship could be lined with water, relying on the Water Wells project for long-term life support in space missions. Water is considered a better shielding material for space missions, since it contains more nuclei than metal (nuclei are what actually block cosmic radiation). The Water Wells design can also purify human waste into drinkable water.

Eventually, the bags full of water will be replaced with dehydrated waste throughout the ship. MacCallum wisely hopes the bags won’t be clear.

The Inspiration Mars ship will also rely on its aluminum skin for radiation protection. Though when it comes to protecting from the burst of particles from solar storms, none of the current shielding suggestions will offer much help. The Inspiration Mars team says it could just point the ship’s upper rocket towards the sun, protecting the astronauts below in the process, in case a major solar flare occurs.

This post is written by Julielynn Wong, MD,

Doctors may soon face requests to provide medical clearance for commercial space travelers and these decisions could impact the growth of the private space industry, according to a new analysis.

The study, published in the Christmas 2012 issue of the British Medical Journal, reviewed industry reports and medical studies to help guide physicians who may have to answer questions and fill out fitness to fly certificates for the growing ranks of aspiring space travelers.

“Commercial investment is bringing space tourism closer to reality,” said study lead author Dr. S. Marlene Grenon, a cardiovascular surgeon and assistant professor of surgery at the University of California, San Francisco. “Suborbital flight opportunities are currently being planned by companies such as Virgin Galactic, Armadillo Aerospace, and XCOR.”

A July 2012 Federal Aviation Administration report estimates the market demand for reusable suborbital vehicles could grow to a total of 13,134 seats over a decade and bring in over $1.6 billion.

“With more opportunities for space tourism, an increasing number of less healthy individuals can be expected to fly,” Grenon said, adding that the exact nature of the effects of spaceflight on medical conditions are yet to be determined.

“Dr. Grenon and colleagues have emphasized the difficulties in commenting upon the fitness — or lack thereof — of potential candidates for spaceflight,” said Dr. Andrew W. Kirkpatrick, a military trauma surgeon and professor of critical care medicine at the University of Calgary and Foothills Medical Center in Alberta.

Passengers should be informed of the lack of advanced medical and surgical care capabilities in current commercial spaceflight platforms, said Kirkpatrick, who was not involved with this study.

Just how far can the medical envelope be pushed? Consider that Stephen W. Hawking — the ventilator-dependent, wheelchair-bound British physicist with longstanding motor neuron disease — is slated to fly onboard a Virgin Galactic suborbital flight.

Space medicine experts say that suborbital flights are less risky than orbital missions because suborbital passengers experience about one to five minutes of microgravity.

“Most people with well controlled medical conditions are capable of withstanding the acceleration forces involved with the launch and landing of commercial spaceflight vehicles,” Grenon said.

The FAA has not made any specific statements on medical requirements for commercial space passengers, the BMJ authors noted. Instead, the FAA has opted to leave the medical screening process up to the commercial space vehicle operators. “Experience in aviation medicine has shown that over-regulation could inhibit development of the sector,” Grenon said, adding that a delicate balance — between prioritizing passenger safety and avoiding overly strict medical criteria that could decrease the market — is needed to make the commercial spaceflight industry viable.

“If a potential space traveler asks his or her physician for a medical letter of clearance for space travel, the physician will share responsibility for determination of suitability with the commercial space operator,” she said.

While the International Space Station is currently the only orbiting space tourist destination, other extended stay commercial spaceflight opportunities could exist in the future, the authors wrote.

“It may be possible to fly to an orbiting Bigelow Aerospace hotel or laboratory in the future,” Grenon said. “Mining companies may send employees to the Moon or near-Earth asteroids to mine planetary resources.”

Once a passenger has disembarked from their space vehicle, there are much greater uncertainties that complicate medical decision making, Kirkpatrick said.

“Adverse physiological changes that increase susceptibility to critical injury or illness may be established within hours of leaving Earth’s gravity,” he said. “Chronic medical conditions may be exacerbated and unexpected acute emergencies may be more serious than on Earth.”

As extended stay commercial spaceflight opportunities develop, doctors will likely adjust the medical standards governing who can live and work in space. Disabled individuals could adapt and perform as well as their able-bodied counterparts in space, said one former physician-astronaut.

“People with disabilities will be able to fly in space just fine,” said Dr. Dan T. Barry, a retired NASA astronaut and physical medicine and rehabilitation physician, who was not involved with this study. “Many mobility impairments will be gone in the space environment.”

[Top image credit: Shutterstock/Monkey Business Images]

Vice president of Chevron Technology Ventures, Jeffrey Jacobs, gave a speech at the event (where Chevron was also a sponsor). In 30 years, our energy demand will increase by 30 to 40 percent, he told the crowd. In order to deal with the increasing demand, Chevron is investing in new energy technology. In the next few decades, renewable forms of energy will play an “extremely important role,” Jacobs said. This is the fourth year Chevron has sponsored the event.

“We need energy of all forms and we want people who have the core capabilities beyond our own to develop new energy solutions,” Jacobs told VentureBeat in an interview after his presentation, “We believe in all forms of energy, no matter where they come from.”

Chevron’s approach is unique for an oil company. While most of its competitors, such as Shell, are focused on oil and natural gas, Chevron is investing money in renewable energy technology. The company is also partnering with NASA to develop energy solutions that can be used on Earth and in space.

Since the Cleantech Open was hosted by NASA, there was a distinctive space theme. One company, called BioFiltro, developed a system that uses worms and microorganisms to turn raw sewage and waste into clean drinking water, technology it feels we’d need if we ever colonized Mars.

NASA also launched its Night Rover competition, asking entrepreneurs to develop technology to keep a lunar rover charged and running during the 14-day pitch black lunar night, when it can’t use solar energy.

Richard Garriott is best known as Lord British, the designer of video games that have been enjoyed by tens of millions of people over the past three decades. But thanks to the documentary film Man on a Mission: Richard Garriott’s Road to the Stars, he is also now known as a pioneer in commercial space travel who paid about $30 million for a trip to the International Space Station.

The story shows how Garriott dreamed of following his father into space, only to be stymied by NASA’s restriction on prohibiting anyone with eyesight flaws requiring glasses from being an astronaut. At 13, with his hopes dashed, Garriott started plotting how to launch his own trip into space as a civilian. His entrepreneurial approach to space travel eventually paid off with the trip of a lifetime in 2008.

The film, by Mike Woolf and First Run Features, tracked Garriott’s trip into space on board a Russian Soyuz rocket. In chronicling his preparations, the filmmakers went behind the old Iron Curtain to reveal the way the Russians train their cosmonauts at a once-secret training base in Star City, near Moscow, then send them into space from a base in Kazakhstan.

Beyond making games, from Ultimate to Tabula Rasa, Garriott has been one of the primary investors in the X-Prize and Space Adventures, the private company that takes private citizens to the space station. He used his passion and profits from games to make his space dream come true.

The film is touching because Richard relied upon the advice and help of his father, Owen Garriott, a scientist-astronaut who flew aboard the Skylab space station in the 1970s. The younger Garriott is the first second-generation astronaut in the U.S.

We interviewed Richard about the film, which is available on demand and is showing in select theaters. Here is an edited transcript.

GamesBeat: Thanks for doing the call, and congratulations on getting the movie out.

Richard Garriott: Yeah, thank you. We’re very excited about it. We broke the top 10 on a number of the documentary charts, so not bad so far.

GB: That’s good, that’s good. So how far back did you guys start thinking about that as a documentary? The footage seems to go pretty far back.

Garriott: Well, interestingly, we were at a friend’s wedding together, and I knew that these guys produced documentaries, I’ve known them for some years, but honestly it hadn’t really crossed my mind. As you might imagine, preparing for a space flight is a non-trivial thing to arrange. Especially while you’re still trying to keep your day job going, if you know what I mean. It really had not crossed my mind at all. But the year before I started training was a year where I had to do a lot of medical preparation for the flight, including a surgery to remove a chunk of my liver. While at my friend’s wedding… When you get together, you say, “What are you up to?” “Well, what are you up to?” I was going around showing off this 16-inch scar I had on my belly from having a chunk of my liver removed, since it was the most recent event in my life, and that’s when Brady (Dial) and Mike (Woolf) both came up to me and said, “Richard, surely by now you have had somebody think about documenting this, haven’t you?” I said, “Well, no, honestly I haven’t.” They said, “Richard, we beg you, let us come to Russia with you to document this, this is such a special opportunity. They already knew that my father was an astronaut, that I would be becoming the first second-generation astronaut, but they were completely unaware of the medical activities, the training I was about to jump into. As soon as they mentioned it, it made enormous sense to me too. And from that point forward they became my surrogate family over in Russia.

GB: Did you know their work from before, had you seen other things that they had done and liked it?

Garriott: Yeah, Brady has actually done a very well-known, well-received IMAX movie about cowboys. Mike Woolf and his team here in Austin, I’d seen their work in advertising and music and other areas. I’ve known both of their work for some time. It had really never crossed my mind, thinking far enough ahead to think about documenting my trip.

GB: What was the idea that drew them? The connection between you and your father, then?

Garriott: No… They knew that civilian space flight was a new industry that I had helped open. And if you combine that with the fact that… I’m the one that helped open it, I’m one of the first people ever to fly, I’m a generational astronaut, that just added up to them… They were saying, “Look, this is definitely a historical moment.” And they also knew that nobody in the West, especially, has ever really had the chance to see the space program from the Russian perspective. And so they knew the footage that we’d be able to capture was not only historical, but also would have this very unique aspect of living and filming from the Russian side of the international space program.

GB: So it had a lot of different hooks there.

Garriott: The story threads, as is often the case with documentaries — you sort of discover the story as you go along. The experiments I was going to perform weren’t set at the time, how we were going to arrange the mission, what part my dad would play through the whole thing. Not this film, but I mean… What his role would be through my mission had not even been fully revealed to us. Even by then. We just knew it was an important story to capture.

GB: How do you feel about how the film turned out?

Garriott: Of course, I think it turned out great. It’s funny, the first rough cut that I saw was about three hours long. When I saw the three-hour version I was just, “Wow, that’s truly amazing, I don’t know how they’re going to ever get this down to an hour and a half.” Because by definition you think they’re going to lose half the content. When they cut it down to 90 minutes, I actually looked at it and said, “Wow, not only is this much better, but I really couldn’t tell you what, if anything, was left on the floor.” It was such a more powerful movie, just by giving it a good editing. Interestingly, I have seen them try to get it down to 60 minutes, because they were debating a 60-minute release as well for television. At 60 minutes you can tell there are some story threads that have had to be left behind. But at 90 minutes I think it’s a really powerful documentary.

GB: The whole story, it has quite a few twists and turns there, it seemed like there were a lot of times where everything could have been cancelled, right?

Garriott: Oh, yeah. In fact, there’s even more that aren’t in the film. But for me, my journey to space had lots of potential dead-ends. The first was my investments in a company called Spacehab, which did fly hardware, but NASA would never let them take systems. Then, when I finally did arrange for the space flight, the internet stock market crashed, so I had to sell my seat to Dennis Tito. But there’s even things, all the way up to the eleventh hour… Of course there’s the medical issues. When they first found that anomaly on my liver, they said, “By the way, you have a disqualifying medical condition.” It could have ended right there. But literally, right up until days before the flight, there were international politics that in theory could have derailed the whole thing. It’s interesting. Even I was holding my breath and crossing my fingers… Up until you board the rocket and it’s about to start. Then you say, “Well, nobody can stop us now.”

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