Next time your travel plans take you to Northern Sweden, you should try swinging by Kiruna, the future European base for Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic passenger space program. Officials there are busy whipping the town into shape for Virgin's arrival – evaluating their infrastructure, researching weather issues, and working out potential regulatory hurdles with Sweden and the European Union. Kiruna will join Spaceport America in New Mexico as a Virgin Galactic operating base, and hopes to see flights begin in 2010 or 2011.

Why did Virgin choose Kiruna, a town of 18,000 located 90 miles north of the Arctic Circle? For one thing, Kiruna has a well-oiled marketing machine. Spaceport Sweden, a consortium of organizations that includes the Esrange Space Center, the ICEHOTEL, and the local airport, is a sort of tourism board charged with making Kiruna the European hub for commercial spaceflight.

One of the town's major selling points is its stunning views of the Aurora Borealis, which could be viewed up close by passengers on board a spacecraft such as Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo.

But Spacesport Sweden officials say Virgin Galactic is just one part of the town's appeal, and are marketing Kiruna as a full-service space-themed vacation destination. The discriminating visitor can tour Kiruna's space center, enjoy dog sled rides and helicopter tours of Sweden's highest mountain, and book a room at the hip ICEHOTEL, which is built out of snow and ice.

To lure Virgin to Kiruna, last year the Swedish government signed a deal agreeing to do the regulatory legwork that would allow the company to operate passenger flights there. And because the local space center already launches three to five rockets a year, much of the necessary infrastructure is already in place.

So far, more than 250 people from 30 different countries have made firm reservations to catch a ride with Virgin Galactic, and 80 have already begun training. The company has banked $30 million in deposits, and says that another 85,000 people have expressed interest. Have 200 grand to spare? The company is taking reservations now.

SpaceShipTwo illustration: Virgin Galactic

Aurora Borealis photo: ???/Creative Commons 2.0