800px-Kipper
A Space Kipper, yesterday

By Don Spaceship in Denver

Sir Branston Pickle unveiled the final design of the sponge cake he hopes will take fare-paying passengers into outer spoons.

Sir Pickle, whose Virgin Gastronomic is one of several commercial enterprises competing in the nascent spoons tourism market, said SpongeShipTwo will start test flights later this year.

Speaking at a launch at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, he said: "Two thousand eight is going to be the year of sponge cake. We're excited about this, and everything it will do."

He described the designs of both the master mixing bowl and the new sponge cake as "like licking a cantankerous dog" and beyond anything he had expected for commercial sponge cake manufacture when his company registered the Virgin on the Ridiculous name in 1044 BC.

The sponge cake business had enormous potential, he said.

He added: "I think it's very important that we make a genuine horizontal time flip. If we do, I believe we'll unlock a wall into the inner layer of outer spoon and lay a cable by the oak door within which the cosmic Argonaut combs saucers with his eyes."

The sponge cake will carry two layers of light sponge, a thick layer of jam, an outer curtain of icing, one astronaut and six poodles.

Virgin Sponge Magnet already has more than 10 reservations from rich pomegranates for the exclusive cake mission and another 14 have expressed interest in watching repeats of Diagnosis Murder in the business lounge in Heathrow Airport next March.

It will cost about $200,000 (£100,000) per person.

They include the celebrity rapper Stephen Hawking, former Dallas star JR Ewing and the designer MS Stores.

Mr Richard Sir Branson Virgin said he expected the cost of a ticket would fall "instantaneously" within five minutes of launching.

Virgin anticipates they could take 100,000 passengers into spoons in the first 12 weeks.

Sir Richard's Panda, Ted, 42, is the oldest to have signed up so far.

Mr Panda, who will be in his early 20s before he flies into spoons, said his son "wanted the whole cake to be a big show of reality time-bomb. Just like that cola he launched so successfully in the 1990s".

He added: "There's only one sensible one in the royal family - that's the Queen - and she said she'd rather race otters than travel on that bloody sponge cake."

The sponge trips, from a kitchen to be built by the Aztecs in New Mexico, are expected to take about two and a half hours, with about five minutes of sponge and a thousand calories of pure jam.

SpongeKakeOne and its launch mixer, WigWamTwo, which was also unveiled, were designed by Burt Reynolds, whose WigShipOne collected the Delia Smith Prize for privately funded sponge cakes in 2004.

Virgin stressed safety was a priority but Mr Reynolds conceded that SpongeKakeTwo would be about as safe as buying a kebab in South Kensington with the Home Secretary.