Is Virgin Galactic And Its Version Of Space Travel Finally For Real? – Forbes

NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 28: Sir Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Galactic, poses for photographs ... [+] before ringing a ceremonial bell on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to promote the first day of trading of Virgin Galactic Holdings shares on October 28, 2019 in New York City. Virgin Galactic Holdings became the first space-tourism company to go public as it began trading on Monday with a market value of about $1 billion. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Virgin Galactic (SPCE:NYSE) blasted off on Valentines Day 2020, rising more than 21% to a 52-week high despite a falling stock market. The company was founded in 2004 by Sir Richard Branson (#478 on the Forbes billionaire list with, $4 billion) and has yet to earn a profit.

Why did the stock rocket upward? The company made a three-hour positioning flight. It flew its passenger spacecraft, SpaceShipTwo, from Mojave Airport in California to its commercial headquarters at Spaceport Americas Gateway to Space building in New Mexico.

But the simple flight was, as the company puts it with its typical hype, another vital step on its path to commercial service.

The transfer of the spacecraft to its long-promised Spaceport America base is indeed big step in the companys 15-year journey to credibility. Typical of the companys history of hype is its exciting website. It opens with a little aircraft flying over the desert and suddenly belching rocket fire, along with video of an astronaut at the controls of a vibrating spaceship.

The product has been pre-sold to more than 600 would-be space tourists in 60 countries who have put down deposits on future flights.

Virgin Galactic Founder Sir Richard Branson demonstrates a spacewear system, designed for Virgin ... [+] Galactic astronauts, at an event October 16, 2019 in Yonkers, New York. - At the event Virgin Galactic and Under Armour unveiled the worlds first exclusive spacewear system for private astronauts. (Photo by Don Emmert / AFP) (Photo by DON EMMERT/AFP via Getty Images)

But before Virgin Galactic reached orbit in the stock market in October of 2019 through a reverse-merger maneuver, it suffered a well-publicized series of reverses and controversies that might have derailed another company.

The opportunity to build the Spaceport, for example, was won by New Mexico in a bidding war with California. But with more than $250 million in New Mexico taxpayer money spent, the spaceport was largely unused for years. As the Atlantic put in in 2018, Although the spaceport has been flight-worthy since 2010, the first launch by its anchor tenant, Virgin Galactic, still hasnt taken off.

Of course, the biggest setback was the tragic 2014 crash of the original SpaceShipTwo on a test flight, which killed one pilot and injured another. The spacecraft was destroyed. But with more than a billion in capital raised from the likes of Abu Dhabi and Boeing, among others, Virgin Galactic soldiered on, with this weeks transfer of the space craft a major milestone for the company.

On the flight, the carrier aircraft, VMS Eve (named for founder Sir Richard Bransons mother) ferried SpaceShipTwo, VSS Unity out of Mojave, where Virgin Galactics manufacturing and test facilities are base. (Virgin says the building of two additional spacecraft is well underway in Mojave.) The pair landed at 15:49MT, where Virgin says it was greeted by an enthusiastic group of teammates who will operate the spaceship in New Mexico.

This captive carry flight also let Virgin engineers evaluate VSS Unity for over three hours at high altitude and cold temperatures, which the company says are difficult to replicate at ground level. The flight was also an opportunity for Italian Air Force test pilot Nicola Stick Pecile to become the fifth pilot to complete a flight in VSS Unity.

As part of the getting ready for space process, Virgin Galactic has moved 100 team members to New Mexico, hired 70 local people, and now has transferred the space craft and carrier ship.

With the arrival of SpaceShipTwo in the New Mexico desert, Virgin Galactic says it will launch captive carry and glide flights from the New Mexico base so the spaceflight team can coordinate with Virgins airspace and ground control. After the glide tests, the team will carry out rocket-powered test flights from Spaceport America to continue to evaluate the spacecrafts performance, including final spaceship cabin and customer experience evaluations in preparation for the start of commercial spaceflight operations.

WhiteKnightTwo, carrying SpaceShipTwo, takes flight over Spaceport America, northeast of Truth Or ... [+] Consequences, on October 17, 2011 in New Mexico. Sir Richard Branson was on hand to host the Keys To A New Dawn event, for the dedication of Virgin Galactic's new home at Spaceport America, the world's first purpose-built commercial spaceport in southern New Mexico, where the Spaceport America Terminal Hangar Facility will serve as the operating hubfor Virgin Galactic and is expected to house two WhiteKnightTwos and five SpaceShipTwos, in addition to all of Virgin's astronaut preparation facilities and mission control. AFP PHOTO / Frederic J. BROWN (Photo credit should read FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)

The irrepressible Sir Richard Branson, a founder of the company, has vowed to be among the first customers, as a sort of human proof of concept. As the Virgin Galctic website trumpets, Together we open space to change the world for good.

Branson will turn 70 in July. But as his improbable career shows, the British billionaire might just pull it off.

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Is Virgin Galactic And Its Version Of Space Travel Finally For Real? - Forbes

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