What is Virgin Galactic?
Virgin Galactic is a spaceflight company founded by billionaire Richard Branson in 2004. Its goal is to provide suborbital flights – in space, but not orbiting around Earth – to scientists and space tourists.
How will these tourists get to space?
The company’s main project is SpaceShipTwo, the craft it says will eventually ferry passengers and science projects just above the planet’s atmosphere. It is not a conventional rocket, but a rocket plane, shuttled high into the air by a larger aircraft before it launches to space.
Why has it taken nearly 15 years?
SpaceShipTwo has had its fair share of problems, with a crash during a 2014 test flight that killed one pilot and badly injuring the other. Virgin resumed testing in 2016 and has continued testing the craft, but it has not gone to space yet – only the upper atmosphere, less than five times as high as a commercial transatlantic flight. It will need to go twice as high, crossing the 100 kilometre line, to technically be in space.
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What is Richard Branson saying now?
In an , Branson said “we should be in space within weeks, not months.” He also claimed that he hoped to go to space himself on a Virgin Galactic craft “in months, not years” with paying customers following shortly after.
Has he made claims like this before?
łŰ±đ˛ő.ĚýEarlier this year, Branson said “we’re talking about months away, not years away” from Virgin Galactic finally sending a craft to space.
That sounds like he is on track?
It depends when you start counting. The company originally planned to send tourists to suborbital space by the end of 2009 – Virgin Galactic even went so far as to announce the first 100 space tourists who would be paying the $200,000 fare to space (the price has since increased to $250,000).
So is it likely to happen?
It’s possible, but after similar announcements over the course of two decades, it seems unlikely. Before the 2014 crash, Virgin had been testing that iteration of SpaceShipTwo for four years. The craft that replaced the one that was destroyed in the crash has only been tested for two years so far. If Branson wants to send his new ship to space, he probably has a lot more testing to do first.
What about other private space firms?
Virgin’s main competitors, Blue Origin and SpaceX, are also racing to break into space tourism. Their spacecraft have flown many times, but are still not rated to carry passengers.
