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Sarasota-based travel agents Ryan and Malaka Hilton have been making a name for themselves in international circles by putting together eclectic trips with starry guest hosts. The list includes professional football players and sons and granddaughters of dignitaries and celebrated designers.
But if business at their firm, Admiral Travel International, ever slows down, the Hiltons are now one step closer to another revenue stream: Outer space. The couple recently flew to California, to the Mojave Air and Spaceport, for the public debut of Virgin Galactic's Spaceship Two — the world's first commercial-manned spaceship.
The event was as star-studded as one of Admiral's trips. The Hiltons shared a stage with such guests as New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Malaka Hilton had her picture taken with Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson.
Ryan Hilton, meanwhile, is one of only 74 worldwide travel agents to be chosen to become an accredited space agent with the Virgin Galactic program. (See Review, 6/13/08.)
“It was out of this world — to see this amazing ship up close and understand what a major milestone this is,” Ryan Hilton says in a statement. “I was thrilled to participate. It's even more apparent now that there is no company better suited to lead the world into the groundbreaking arena of space tourism and commercial space use than Virgin Galactic.”
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