Virgin procurement deal with Mojave Aerospace

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3693020.stm

Sir Richard wants to buy 5 of the uprated SS1 class vehicles. It looks as if the commercial market everybody hoped for is going to happen a hell of a lot quicker than we hoped!
However, I can't let him get away with it that easily can I?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_west/3692886.stm

Have that for not investing in a British firm!

It should be those stretched SS1 designs that Burt had shown previously.

Well... I believe him !

I hope they are more reliable than virgin trains!

well done mr B

Wait and see. You'll find he'll offer it as a frequent flier award on VS.

for more news related to virgin, go to: http://www.xprizenews.org/index.php

$200,000 for a seat though! Altough if I had jst won lotto why the hell not! and if i had a spare 1.2mill might as well shout the family a ride!
It should be good,peoples dreams can now become a reality.

Iain

I think the price is a good starting point. That way, the rich folk who want to take themselves in to space help to fund the next gen of spacecraft for the rest of us...^_- By the time it's cheap enough for us to ride on, it will also be quite safe.

I hope Vergin will not be the only company who will invest in space tourism ...

There is Blue Origin, which is run by Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk of SpaceX wants to get into manned spaceflight eventually, as does SpaceDev. So there are some very well-funded millionaires and billionaires that will likely compete with Branson

200k a ticket frankly sucks. That should be lower by a factor of four. That isn't CATS. That's about $1000/lb of payload or so for a suborbital. $1000/lb for orbital? Now we're talking. But not this. I don't care what perks they are throwing in. The idea was cheaper access to space to develop space industry and eventually make it far easier to go there. I don't think Virgin is moving in that direction at all, and at the rate it's taking, it will just be another Concorde: a prestige winner that doesn't expand any boundaries.


I now actively hope that one of the other, cheaper vehicles (Armadillo, Rubicon, Xerus), beats the pants off of Virgin when it comes time for a competetive business.

The 200k ticket is only in the beginning, branson also said that they will reinvest all the money to lower the ticket price even more.

"We will re-invest the funds raised over the first few years of flight back into the business, striving constantly to lower prices. "
http://www.xprizenews.org/index.php?p=521

£115,000 ($190,000) is a lot, but I think it's a normal number if you look at the investment they have to do:
"It is expected that around £60 million ($100 million) will be invested in developing the new generation of spaceships and ground infrastructure required to operate a sub orbital space tourism experience."
Also employees, taxes, etc have to be paid just to keep the business running.

Branson and Allen have a lot of money.. but their pocket can not keep funding a project that's constantly losing millions a year...
So if you want to fly in space as one of the first.. you'll have to pay also for the development of new vehicles and research...
On this way, the real rich people, who can't wait to go in space, will help to create new space ships that will bring people like you and me into space for a lot lower price.

I am glad that are charging so much, the more money they make early on the more money they will have to invest so we can actually get into space, instead of just floating around for a few minutes than dropping back down.

Pleas remember the following part of one of the articles concerning Branson's deal: "The licensing deal with M.A.V. could be worth up to £14 million ($21.5 million) over the next fifteen years depending on the number of spaceships built by Virgin."

First this means that Branson has to amortize his license(s)/deal. That justifies the high price at the beginning.

Second this means very fast amortization of SSO for Burtan Rutan and Paul Allen.

But third the deal will tend to cause the reduction of production costs thus creating the basis for the reduction of Branson's ticket prices.



Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

My biggest worry is that a Virgin never goes the whole way.

Sorry, old joke.