No, this isn't SpaceShipTwo, just the imaginary space

bus from the Mel Brooks 1987 movie, "Space Balls"

Movies and TV have done it for years, from H.G. Wells to Mel Brooks. Space ships filled wih tourists portrayed as exploring outer space. Now, according to announcements from Virgin Galactic and XCOR, 2010 will be the year when the first real-life civilian space tours will take off from Mother Earth. A rocket-propelled vehicle will boost big-money customers up into the stratosphere, just below the orbital flight areas of NASA space ships.

For the $200,000 ticket, the space tourists will experience three days of pre-flight training, and then a rocket-propelled three-day flight with five other passengers on the soon-to-be-tested and flown SpaceShipTwo. Once in outer space, passengers will experience weightlessness and have an out-of-this-world view of the Earth beneath and the heavens above.

As with many NASA flights, SpaceShipTwo will piggy-back into space from a jet aircraft, the Virgin Galactic’s WhiteKnightTwo. For more information, go to www.virgingalactic.com.