VG History
Operating commercial human space flights has been a long held dream at Virgin. Over the years we met with various teams around the world who were developing, or hoping to develop, Space Technology. Fascinating as this exercise was, nothing we saw met our investment requirements.
These requirements were safety, value and optimum passenger experience. These are three cornerstones of our existing air and train transport operations.
The space flight technology already in use just did not fit the bill. It involved hugely expensive rocket launches and components that could mostly be used only once. Even reusable vehicles such as the Space Shuttle, took months to prepare for another flight with literally thousands of procedures to be followed before it could fly again. This was a risky, time-consuming and horrendously expensive process, just to get seven or eight people into Space and back.
The existing technology also did not offer the safety levels that we required. The number of accidents and deaths through space flight was far too high for a commercial venture. It is important to note that Virgin Galactic is not critical of the designs and procedures used by NASA and other space agencies around the world. They did the job they set out to do and continue to make significant advances under ever-restricting budgets. The leaps made in the race to the Moon and the fact that NASA put people on the Moon at all in such a short time frame is an astounding achievement for all to be proud of. The lessons learnt from this and the stunning efforts of the Russians have been applied to Virgin Galactic's technology. It all worked well for space exploration at a government level but it was just not practical for commercial operations.
Dr Peter Diamondis, like thousands around the globe including many astronauts, was disappointed that human space exploration had largely ended with the lunar landings. It was expected that within a short time of these flights, humans would be taking vacations in space, yet in 30 years nothing had developed on that front with government agencies preferring to focus primarily on scientific research and robotic exploration, not manned space travel for fun!
In 1996 there were rumours of a sub-orbital space race in the form of a $10 million prize to go to the first organisation to create a fully reusable space vehicle. At Virgin our ears pricked up! Could this be what we had been waiting for? It was soon confirmed that, inspired by the story of the Spirit of St Louis when Charles Lindbergh won the Orteig Prize for his non-stop crossing of the Atlantic, Diamondis had set up the Ansari X-Prize. He raised $10 million to give to the first privately funded operation to design, build and safely complete two manned sub-orbital space flights within 14 days in the same reusable vehicle. The spacecraft would have to fly past the Karman Line, the generally accepted point at which you are officially in space. This meant exceeding an altitude of 100 kilometres (62.14mi/328,1 OOft). Winning the prize would entail a combination of innovation, determination, a willingness to take risks and a small amount of brilliance to a degree that left many doubting the prize would ever be won.
Burt Rutan and his company, Scaled Composites, already had an unparalleled reputation in the aviation industry for designing and building innovative aircraft. Luckily for Virgin Galactic, Burt was inspired to have a go at the X-Prize and came up with a brilliant design. Soon construction commenced in utmost secrecy within an innocent looking hangar in the Mojave Desert. Others were doing the same across the globe. The space race was back on!
In 1998 Virgin decided that the X-Prize really might lead to some technology we could invest in. We registered Virgin Galactic as a company name and over the next few years we looked at a variety of different designs and concepts, however nothing we saw came close to fulfilling our needs in terms of safety and commercial viability - until we met with Burt Rutan...
In April 2003, Scaled Composites unveiled SpaceShipOne and began test flights along with the carrier aircraft, WhiteKnightOne. The rumours were also confirmed that Microsoft founder, Paul Allen, was funding the construction.
In December of the same year SpaceShipOne completed her first supersonic flight, reaching an altitude of 68,000 feet and a speed of 930 miles an hour (Mach 1.2), entering the record books as the first 100% privately funded aircraft to complete a supersonic flight. Virgin now began some serious talks with Burt Rutan and Paul Allen about the possibility of investing in this technology should they win the X-Prize.
A year after the unveiling of SpaceShipOne, the US Department of Transportation issued Scaled Composites with the world's first ever license to operate private manned sub¬orbital rocket flights. This license was approved by the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation. This paved the way for Scaled to undertake its first space test flight.
On 21 June 2004, seasoned test pilot Mike Melvill safely and successfully completed SpaceShipOne's first sub-orbital test flight whilst Brian Binnie piloted WhiteKnightOne. Mike reached an altitude of 100.12 kilometres (6221 mi/328,491 ft). Virgin Galactic was announced to the world's press on 27th September 2004 and within a matter of months, Richard Branson and Burt Rutan announced that Virgin Galactic had ordered five next generation spaceships and two carrier aircraft suitable for commercial flights.
Two days later, on 29 September 2004, Mike Melvill successfully piloted SpaceShipOne's second sub-orbital flight and first X-Prize flight. Again Brian Binnie had the controls of WhiteKnightOne. This time Mike took SpaceShipOne to an altitude of 103 kilometres (64mi/337,700 feet).
Six days later on 4 October, Mike and Brian switched roles and Brian flew SpaceShipOne to an altitude of 367,500 feet (112km/69.59mi) to win the $10 million Ansari X-Prize. The required time frame to win the prize had been to complete the two flights within 14 days, yet Scaled had achieved this in less than a week.
Burt Rutan's brilliant design made headlines around the world. Not only had he developed a fully reusable sub-orbital spacecraft, but he had also found a willing commercial operator in the form of Virgin Galactic to invest in further developing his technology. Hopefully Peter Diamondis found his efforts worthwhile!
Less than a year later, in July 2005, Virgin Galactic began taking deposits for confirmed commercial spaceflight reservations.
In 1969 Neil Armstrong said mankind had taken a giant leap when he stepped from the ladder of his lunar module onto the surface of the Moon. Mankind certainly had, and millions around the world dreamed of following in those historic footsteps. Thousands really believed it would be possible for them to go to the Moon in their own lifetimes. But by the end of 1972 only 12 people had walked on the Moon and nobody has returned
since.
From the end of the lunar landings there was a distinct feeling that all of us, including the astronauts and other brilliant minds of the manned space programme, had somehow been let down. Had all the effort, brilliance and sacrifice on the part of the Russians and Americans in the 1960's been for nothing? Were our dreams in vain? Some misguided souls even began to question if we ever went to the Moon in the first place.
At the time of SpaceShipOne's flights, less than 450 humans had been to space in around 40 years. The only people that currently got to go every year were a handful of lucky astronauts involved in government programmes and the odd civilian with $20 million and six months to spare for training. In that respect almost nothing had changed since Armstrong & Aldrin became the first men to walk on the Moon. It seemed that our personal dreams of going to space would never be fulfilled.
But with the X-Prize and Virgin Galactic's investment, that had suddenly changed and normal people once again could dare to dream that one day they could float in space and look back at Earth. Maybe this was just the beginning, maybe one day they could go and see Armstrong's footsteps for themselves.
