Virgin Galactic cancels its announced November suborbital flight
Capitalism in space: Virgin Galactic announced yesterday that it has canceled its announced November suborbital flight, claiming the cause were new COVID-19 guidelines imposed by the New Mexico Department of Health.
The flight had been scheduled for the November 19-23 time period. It had been announced with the typical hype that comes from Richard Branson.
Personally, I don’t believe Branson or Virgin Galactic as to the cause of this flight cancellation. I think they either never intended to fly, or have known for some time that new technical problems would prevent its launch as scheduled. I think they hyped the launch despite this, which conveniently pumped up the stock price at a time Branson was selling stock. They now announce the cancellation, the stock drops, but Branson has already pocketed his profits.
The timing of this announcement is also most ironic, as it occurred on the same day SpaceX docked four astronauts on ISS. Branson’s company began building its suborbital spacecraft in 2004, promising that it would soon fly hundreds, even thousands of private passengers into space. Sixteen years later it has never flown one passenger, and very few manned test flights. In the interim SpaceX built its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule, and is now launching passengers to orbit, with its first entirely private launch scheduled less than a year from now.
The comparison is quite stark. Why anyone would invest real money in this fake company at this point baffles me.
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Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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Capitalism in space: Virgin Galactic announced yesterday that it has canceled its announced November suborbital flight, claiming the cause were new COVID-19 guidelines imposed by the New Mexico Department of Health.
The flight had been scheduled for the November 19-23 time period. It had been announced with the typical hype that comes from Richard Branson.
Personally, I don’t believe Branson or Virgin Galactic as to the cause of this flight cancellation. I think they either never intended to fly, or have known for some time that new technical problems would prevent its launch as scheduled. I think they hyped the launch despite this, which conveniently pumped up the stock price at a time Branson was selling stock. They now announce the cancellation, the stock drops, but Branson has already pocketed his profits.
The timing of this announcement is also most ironic, as it occurred on the same day SpaceX docked four astronauts on ISS. Branson’s company began building its suborbital spacecraft in 2004, promising that it would soon fly hundreds, even thousands of private passengers into space. Sixteen years later it has never flown one passenger, and very few manned test flights. In the interim SpaceX built its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule, and is now launching passengers to orbit, with its first entirely private launch scheduled less than a year from now.
The comparison is quite stark. Why anyone would invest real money in this fake company at this point baffles me.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Disappointing, but not unexpected. They had a head start in technology (Rutan had just built an operational suborbital spacecraft) and threw it away. It’s clear now that Branson had no intention of pursuing this thing to the end. It’s all been an elaborate con game.
I would reclassify their craft as a high altitude aircraft and never report on them again.
They are not serious about spaceflight and never have been.
He had the cash to employ a thousand people to manufacture and fly anything to space but the whole time they couldn’t keep more than a 200 employed at a single time. And for most of the time less then a 100 including janitors and security.
Compare this to Space X.
pzatchok: You remind me of the amount of money invested in Virgin Galactic, which based on reports probably exceeds a billion, excluding the money raised recently in stock sales. For this they accomplished practically nothing over 16 years.
SpaceX has raised about $2 billion for Starship. For this they will have a reusable Saturn 5 rocket, likely in less than five years.
The comparison, as you note, is quite revealing.
The smell from Blue Origin (appropriately abbreviated as “BO”) is just about as bad. We space fans had better hope that Elon Musk recovers from Covid as spectacularly as did President Trump!
@Ray Van Dune
At least BO is just playing with Bezos’ money. They also have a shot at flying something, eventually.
Burt Rutan is a talented, somewhat quirky, aircraft designer. Spaceship One was a specific answer to the X-Prize competition which it won.
However, note it was retired right after that. It never flew the 3 people it was capable of carrying. I think the whole team somewhat frightened themselves. Badly.
Branson backed the wrong horse with the hybrid rocket motor. Liquid rockets is a mature technology nowadays and going to the XCor folks a few hangars down would have been a good move.
Another thing: Spaceships don’t need wings. They complicate matters greatly and you end up designing an airplane AND a spacecraft with the problems of both. Musk has seen this and the Starship has no wings just drag flaps/dragerons/elonerons whatever you want to call them. Bad enough but I think possibly no other way around the problem. They also help by the high drag surface area keeping more of the heating at high altitude on atmosphere entry. Starship IS NOT an airplane.