Space travel economics: Don’t damn the rich for splurging on Virgin Galactic November 3, 2014 “Never let a serious crisis go to waste”, concluded Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama’s ex-chief of staff. For our political commentators, a more accurate phrase might be “never let a tragedy go to waste”. Just days after the Mojave Desert crash of the Virgin Galactic spacecraft, the Guardian’s Zoe Williams has used the tragic incident to [...]
Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo crash: Year-long investigation to push back commercial flight launch November 3, 2014 An investigation into the crash of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo in California’s Mojave Desert on Friday, that resulted in the death of one pilot, will take up to a year and could delay plans for the start of commercial space flights next year. Billionaire entrepreneur and Galactic’s founder Richard Branson vowed on Saturday to find out [...]
Virgin Galactic crash: Richard Branson says “Space is hard… We will persevere” after space test flight accident November 1, 2014 Richard Branson has said Virgin Galactic will continue with its space tourism venture after the fatal crash of one of its spaceships during a test flight. “Space is hard – but worth it. We will persevere and move forward together,” Branson wrote in a blog post as he headed to the crash site in the Mojave [...]
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo crashes during space test flight after “in-flight anomaly” killing one and injuring a second person October 31, 2014 Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson’s commercial space flight company, has lost one of its spaceships during a test flight. SpaceShipTwo experienced an “in-flight anomaly”, the company said, causing it to crash over the Mojave Desert, killing one and injuring a second according to Calfornia Highway Patrol. It's understood there were two pilots aboard the spaceship but no [...]
Elon Musk’s SpaceX wins Nasa commercial flight contract September 17, 2014 It’s a good day for PayPal founder Elon Musk; his SpaceX corporation has been selected by Nasa as one of the two firms to design crew capsules for transporting astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). The Commercial Crew Development programme has awarded SpaceX and Boeing a combined sum of $6.2bn to develop the capsules. [...]
Boeing and SpaceX will share a $6.8bn space taxi Nasa contract September 16, 2014 NASA yesterday revealed Boeing and SpaceX will share a $6.8bn (£4.2bn) contract to fly astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). Massive aerospace and defence company Boeing will get $4.2bn from Nasa to use its CST-100 capsule to ferry astronauts to the ISS. Meanwhile SpaceX, founded in 2002 by former Paypal entrepreneur and Tesla Motors [...]
Google and Virgin Galactic in talks over space tourism business stake June 12, 2014 Google is in late stage talks to acquire a stake in Richard Branson's space tourism venture Virgin Galactic, Sky News reports. The deal is likely to see Google pay £17.8m for a 1.5 per cent stake in the holding company and a cash injection of "hundreds of millions of dollars into a joint venture" to [...]
Elon Musk: “I didn’t think SpaceX or Tesla would work” June 9, 2014 Billionaire tech titan Elon Musk – the brain behind Tesla electric cars, a project to colonise Mars and Hyperloop – has more ideas in a year than most people in a lifetime. But speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, the serial entrepreneur admitted that he hasn’t always had faith that things will come [...]
Virgin Galactic cleared by US for launches May 29, 2014 RICHARD Branson’s Virgin Galactic took one small step towards its goal of commercial space flight yesterday after agreeing with US flight authorities on a flight path for its space shuttles to use. The flight path from Virgin Galactic’s multi-million dollar US base Spaceport America has been approved by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to provide [...]