"I gave Ashton a quick call to congratulate and welcome him," wrote Virgin chief Richard Branson on his blog. "He is as thrilled as we are at the prospect of being among the first to cross the final frontier (and back!) with us and to experience the magic of space for himself."
When will that be? Good question. The latest word from Virgin Galactic is that SpaceShipTwo will hit the skies with its first cargo of paying passengers sometime next year. But don't hold your breath. The company has consistently pushed back the date of the maiden voyage, citing safety concerns; it was initially supposed to be in 2008.
As one of the first ticketed passengers told Mashable: "Every year for the last six years they’ve been saying ‘next year.’”
Still, Virgin Galactic has collected more than $60 million in pledges from passengers who, like Kutcher, will have paid $200,000 apiece for a short journey in the six-person craft by the time they fly. (To put down your deposit and reserve your place in line, you need only pony up $20,000.)
For Kutcher, that could add up to some relatively cheap publicity. The actor (and prominent startup investor) has suffered from a string of bad press lately. Late last year he won the first "Foot In Mouth" award from Celebtweets.com for a social media missive supporting Joe Paterno over the Penn State scandal; immediately after that tweet, Kutcher announced he was "taking a break" from Twitter.