Richard Branson's commercial space travel Mothership: Bound for success or failure?

Success

3 of 4

by Joshua Simmet

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What is one of the things that every child has on their list of things they want to be when they grow up? An astronaut. You never hear a 7 year old talk about how much he wants to be an accountant. And now with Richard Branson's commercial space ship doohickey everyone will get the chance... well, sorta. Sure there are some difficulties for certain demographics, such as everyone who makes less a six figure yearly income may have to spend some time saving and budgeting. Yet I bet that there will be a large number of people who will be willing to spend six years saving money and eating ramen noodles to get the chance.

One of the major things that will be a huge turn on to everyone is that space is a place that a very small percentage of people get the opportunity to go into space via the government run operations in the nations with a space capable program. Every year people spend thousands of dollars to get the equipment and transportation to go do such things as Scuba diving.

Richard Garriott reportedly created, lost and recreated a fortune for the chance to visit space. Admittedly not everyone will have the chance, or the ability, to make a couple ($30) million dollars to go into space. But for a number of people saving money for a few years will not be a great deterrent to going into space. And it seems that this commercial project will likely cost less to go to space than going through NASA.

With the wealthy willing to spend huge amounts of money on things such as 36 cars, 34 of which they have never and will never drive, and houses large enough to warrant its own gift shop I foresee little trouble for Branson to find people willing to shell out the cash. And if Branson is as smart and business savvy as he has shown himself to be thus far he will space out the flights and restrict the seats so that it will be a big deal to be on the shuttle. And if rich people love anything its being a part of a big deal.

And even if this little venture proves to be less than a success commercially, technologically it will be huge. There have been no space worthy vessels created outside a government created and funded organization, and with this creation it opens up all sorts of possibilities to partnerships with other corporations that could profit from scientific research conducted in space. Microsoft, Exxon, maybe even a company like Pfizer could benefit.

Either way the Virgin Galactic project is something that I look forward to hearing about in the future. And even with the difficulties presented I feel safe in saying that with Richard Branson leading the project it will be a resounding success.

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