Virgin Galactic has a cool concept movie buried within a stupid flash site. next: orbital light

2013-09-08: virgin suborbital has been eclipsed in the last 2 years by spacex, but it’s nice to know that they are making good progress to begin operations in 2014.

2018-08-24:

Branson and his grandchildren were huddled around an iPad at their mountain lodge in Verbier, Switzerland, watching a live stream of the flight. At the end of the rocket-motor burn, the room erupted with delight. “Artie, my 3-year-old grandson, asked me why I was crying when everyone else was cheering,” Branson recalled. “It was just such a beautiful moment.”

He knew that Virgin Galactic still faced plenty of challenges. After a few more powered flights—on July 26th, Mackay and Masucci completed a 42-second rocket-powered flight, reaching 50 km—the pilots would go all the way into space. Once that goal was met, they’d need to make several repeat flights, in order to assure the public that SpaceShipTwo was ready to begin commercial service. Branson, who had been funding Virgin Galactic for 15 years, felt that redemption was finally near. “We’ve proved skeptics wrong”.

2021-07-12: congratulations to Virgin Galactic for their first suborbital tourism flight.