Richard Branson dreams on putting tourists in space, and he thinks he already has the platform to gather public support for the development of vehicles capable of reaching space.

Yesterday, Virgin Galactic has just launched its space tourism firm before the New York stock market, opening at US$ 12/share.

BBC.COM says Virgin merged with publicly listed holding firm Social Capital Hedosphia based in Silicon Valley which allowed the launch in the United States. That deal brought back Virgin to about $800 million.

That deal brought $800m (£624m) to Virgin as it rushes to meet its goal of sending customers to space in 2020.

Taking the firm public will “open space to more investors and in doing so, open space to thousands of new astronauts,” Sir Richard said at the time.

BBC.COM reports that “Social Capital Hedosophia is already listed on the NYSE, allowing Virgin to sell shares without following the traditional stock offering process.

Shares in Social Capital Hedosophia, which will start trading under the ticker SPCE on Monday, jumped 11% on Friday in anticipation of the debut.”