Richard Branson joins the space race

The Mojave desert, 160km north of Los Angeles, is best known for its unforgiving weather and ancient, almost alien, landscape. On Monday, however, it will play host to a very modern spectacle when Sir Richard Branson unveils the latest stage of his scheme to transform space travel into a cheap, commercial proposition.

On a barren airstrip tucked into the edge of the desert, the 59-year-old billionaire will pull back the curtain on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo (SS2) – the carbon-composite craft about the size of a Gulfstream jet (and a third of the size of the Space Shuttle) which aims to carry paying passengers out of the Earth's atmosphere to the brink of space.

Already, 300 wealthy adventurers are said to have signed up for the proposed $200,000, two-and-a-half-hour flights – among them scientists Stephen Hawking and 90-year-old James Lovelock, and celebrities such as X-Men director Brian Singer and former Dallas star Victoria Principal. In stark contrast to the complexity of an astronaut's training, a flight with Virgin Galactic will only require three days' pre-training. It is rumoured that the very first passengers will be Branson himself, along with his two children and parents.