Millions of people may become astronauts

• Richard Branson predicts breakthroughs.

As USA TODAY celebrates it 30th anniversary, we interviewed some of the USA's greatest visionaries about the world of tomorrow: How we'll live, learn and travel, what we'll do and who we'll be.

An adventure vacation will mean blasting off for a cruise in low-Earth orbit, and flights from New York to Sydney will take about two hours.

British entrepreneur and adventurer Richard Branson -- who, in the past three decades, launched airlines and who plans to launch spaceships soon -- predicts flights such as these reflect the next breakthrough in air travel.

In the next 30 years, he says, spaceflight will be nearly as common for travelers as taking a plane trip became for millions across the world in the past 30 years.

"It's going to be an explosion of people having had the chance to go into space and enjoy the marvels of space travel," he says. "In the past 30 years, only 500 people have been to space. I suspect in the next 30 years there may be something like 5 million people who will have had the opportunity to become astronauts."

Space travel won't be enjoyed only by thrill-seeking tourists, he says. The technology that permits flights into space also will allow passengers to fly to far-flung places on Earth in record time.

They'll find themselves "popping out of the Earth's atmosphere and straight back down again" on a non-stop trip from New York to Sydney that will last 2 or 21/2 hours instead of the 20-hour, multi-leg trip required today.

"The most radical difference," Branson says, "will be speed."

Routinely breaking the bounds of Earth isn't the only advancement in air travel Branson sees just around the corner. He sees a world in which "all planes will be flying on clean fuel."

Branson, 62, is a bona fide visionary. He has a track record of figuring out what people are willing to pay for, starting with Virgin Records in the 1970s. That became what's now telecom and cable giant Virgin Media, before Branson turned his attention to aviation.

In 1984, he started Virgin Atlantic airline, which has offshoots Virgin America and Virgin Australia -- all of which are known for trendy, high-end service and for experimenting with biofuels. He trademarked the Virgin Galactic name 21 years ago but expects to have paying passengers on suborbital spaceflights as soon as next year. Here's what Branson sees in the decades ahead:

Space tourism

"I'm absolutely certain that there will be hundreds of thousands -- if not millions -- of people who will opt for (spaceflights), once the price gets to the right level," he says. "We've already got more people signed up to go on Virgin Galactic than have been up in the history of the last 60 years into space. We'll put all those people up in our first year of operation."

Long-distance 'spaceship planes'

The craft Branson envisions involves a mother ship that carries a six-passenger craft to higher altitude. That 60-foot vehicle then separates and takes its crew and passengers into low-Earth orbit before gliding to the ground.

Environmentally friendly

Airlines ferrying passengers on regional routes -- say Tulsa to Dallas -- will run small, short-hop planes on battery cells, he predicts. And big jetliners making those longer treks? "They'll be flying on algae-based fuels and fuels made from waste products."