Good news for all you couch potatoes out there: You don't have to be in peak physical condition to make it to space.

The vast majority of people who want to fly to suborbital space and back are medically fit to do so, according to researchers at Virgin Galactic, which is developing the commercial spaceliner SpaceShipTwo.

"We have encountered only one or two [customers] for whom we have recommended that they do not take a flight with us," Virgin Galactic Chief Medical Officer James Vanderploeg said during a talk at the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS), which was held in October in Las Cruces, New Mexico. [Rise of SpaceShipTwo: The Test Flight Photos]

Vanderploeg's ISPCS talk came before the tragiccrash of SpaceShipTwoduring an Oct. 31 test flight, which killed co-pilot Mike Alsbury and injured pilot Peter Siebold. But in an email exchange following the accident, Vanderploeg told Space.com that he did not have anything to add or change from his earlier comments.

SpaceShipTwo is designed to be lofted to an altitude of 50,000 feet (15,000 meters) by a carrier plane called WhiteKnightTwo. At that point, the two-pilot, six-passenger spaceliner will be released and will fire its onboard rocket motor for about 1 minute to zoom up to an altitude of 62 miles (100 kilometers).

SpaceShipTwo will accelerate to approximately 3.5 times the speed of sound, producing moderate G-forces on pilots and passengers. As the vehicle coasts up into space, passengers can leave their seats to experience weightlessness and view the Earth and the blackness of space for several minutes from the space plane's 12 large cabin windows.

The passengers will then strap back into their seats for the ride home, which will end with an airplane-style tarmac touchdown.

Virgin Galactic isn't the only company selling seats on suborbital flights. XCOR Aerospace is developing a one-passenger space plane called Lynx; tickets currently go for around $100,000.

The price of a ticket for a ride aboard SpaceShipTwo is currently $250,000. Hundreds of people have put down a deposit to reserve a seat.

Vanderploeg and his team have been researching the health requirements for these customers. For example, Virgin Galactic has collected data from a number of future passengers during centrifuge training runs, which began with 77 participants in 2007 to 2008 at the National Aerospace Training and Research (NASTAR) Center in Southampton, Pennsylvania.

Originally posted here:

Are You Healthy Enough to Fly to Space?