Virgin Galactic Signs Historic Lease Agreement

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday January 1, 2009 @02:52AM from the coming-to-america dept.

RobGoldsmith writes "Governor Bill Richardson today announced that Virgin Galactic has signed a 20-year lease agreement with the State of New Mexico. Virgin Galactic's world headquarters will be established in New Mexico and its operations will be located at New Mexico's Spaceport America, the nation's first purpose-built commercial spaceport. The signing of the lease agreement coincides with the beginning of the test flying program for Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnightTwo launch vehicle which got underway this month in Mojave, CA. The WhiteKnightTwo will serve as the mother ship for SpaceShipTwo, the vehicle that will carry commercial astronauts into sub-orbital space from Spaceport America."

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Re:For the record... by ThrowAwaySociety · 2009-01-01 06:04 · Score: 4, Interesting

Burt Rutan is mine.
Branson is just the Bill Gates of a different industry.
Re:If this keeps up, we won't need NASA. by geckipede · 2009-01-01 09:01 · Score: 2, Interesting

Agreed that SSTOs are not the only goal, any form of cheap access to space would be good. I still don't believe that Virgin Galactic's model is going to change anything though. It is forming a new market, but one that is selling expensive experiences to people, on a low profit margin. All the innovation they will be motivated to attempt will be in terms of lowering their costs to allow them to give roughly the same experience as they can offer now to a larger market.