Richard Branson is officially having way too much with all of his money. Since Virgin isn’t a sponsor of ours, we can’t really say that we love their on-flight entertainment options. We can’t tell you how much we enjoy their neon lights inside the airplane cabins. We can’t tell you how awesome it is to be able to text message the hottie sitting in 16D. Nope. But, we can tell you how cool we think Branson is for trying to get regular rich folk to outer space.

A souped-up aircraft that would help boost well-heeled thrill seekers into the outer atmosphere was unveiled Monday, lifting the prospects for travelers to one day fly in a commercial spaceliner.

After keeping the project shrouded in secrecy for more than three years, project developers dropped the curtain on the White Knight Two, an odd-looking aircraft with two airplane bodies joined at the wings and resembling a flying catamaran.

And that was just the mother ship, designed to ferry an eight-person rocket from the Earth’s surface to a launch point 48,000 feet up.

And that’s when you start feeling the chilaquiles come up…

There the rocket ship would be released and its engine ignited, hurtling it up to an altitude of 360,000 feet — the edge of space — where passengers and crew would experience about four minutes of weightlessness. The craft would then drift back to Earth and land at an airport like a plane. Elapsed time from takeoff to touchdown: about 2 1/2 hours.

We have no idea how many people would be able to afford this. Hell, people are constantly bitching about prices to Europe from the States (including us), so how will this ever grow to commercial status? Please tell us Saudi Arabia isn’t in the “rocket fuel” biz. Some pictures of the space plane below.

Richard Branson is “Batman”, isn’t he?

Richard Branson unveils his space plane [Newsday]
Images [Newsday]