Virgin Galactic To Start Commercial Space Flights

Facts

• On Thursday, Virgin Galactic announced it had scheduled its first commercial space flight between June 27 and 30.¹
• The space tourism company owned by Richard Branson said Galactic 01 would carry three crew members from the Italian Air Force and the National Research Council of Italy to study microgravity.²
• Galactic's second commercial flight, called Galactic 02, will follow in August and will reportedly kick off a schedule of monthly spaceflights afterward.²
• The company said it had sold around 800 tickets over the past decade. Though it initially charged $200K, tickets now cost $450K per person.³
• The space plane reportedly reaches an altitude of 50K feet before it's released from a carrier aircraft, starts up its rocket motor, and then reaches space, where it turns off to give riders a feeling of weightlessness and a view of Earth.¹
• Shares of Virgin Galactic Holdings, which have increased by more than 16% this year, jumped 53.2% to $6.24 a share in after-hours trading Thursday.⁴

Sources: ¹Al Jazeera, ²BBC News, ³Yahoo Finance, and ⁴Wall Street Journal.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by Observer. It’s been a rocky road for Virgin Galactic, but things are finally looking up, and the company is about to fulfill its lofty goals. The pandemic delayed the company’s ability to get its commercial space flights up and running, but it looks like it can now fulfill the dreams of hundreds of passengers.
• Narrative B, as provided by Forbes. Celebrations should be saved until after these planes complete at least one space flight. Virgin Galactic has faced close calls and calamities in the past and is still far from making frequent and safe human spaceflight a reality. Moreover, Branson may be getting ahead of himself to give the impression he's winning the space race among the billionaire class.

Predictions