July 31st, 2009
Manchester City football clubowner Sheikh Mansour has added space travel to his diverse portfolio of businesses by buying 32 per cent of Virgin Galactic.
The deal, which was done through the sheikh’s company Aabar, puts the value of Virgin Galactic at $900 million even though it hasn’t begun to offer flights yet.
In return it will gain regional rights to host Virgin Galactic tourism and research flights, and is planning to build spaceport facilities in Abu Dhabi.
July 31st, 2008
The era of space tourism has begun. Out in the Mojave desert, Virgin Galactic has unveiled, the WhiteKnightTwo, the new transport ship they’ll be using to carry their not-yet-unveiled SpaceShipTwo into suborbital space.
The passenger ship is then launched from the underside of WhiteKnightTwo to continue its ascent to the very edge of space, about 65 miles (104 kilometers) above Earth.
With a 140-foot wingspan, it’s the largest all-carbon composite aircraft ever built and many of its component parts have been built using composite materials for the very first time (A major benefit of using carbon composites is fuel efficiency.)
June 26th, 2008
Those who enjoy reading our blog may have noticed how tough life is for wealthy people who never know how to spend their money. Fortunately, companies such as Virgin always come up with great ideas to get their money back from their super rich oil suppliers.
A Russian businessman has paid $200,000 dollars to take his parents kilometers above Earth on a ride in a space ship, the Interfax news agency reported overnight.
“When I told my mother we were going to fly in space, she asked me just one question: ‘When?’ said Kutsenko, a 34-year-old who runs an advertising agency. “We booked a couple of extra places. Maybe one of our friends will want to come too,”
Another businessman, Timur Artemiev, also bought tickets along with his wife for the trip on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo craft, which is to take them 100km above the Earth.
Virgin Galactic commercial director Stephen Attenboro said 250 people, including 11 Russians, had signed up for flights on SpaceShipTwo, according to the agency. The company’s commercial space flights are due to start in 2010.
Passengers will take a two-hour flight and spend four minutes floating in zero gravity.
