Tag Archives: creating jobs

Visionary Employment Opportunities; Virgin Galactic

Of course I’m partial. For those of you who have read the stories of my early exploits as a Musician on street corners in London in the mid sixties, you may remember my encounters with Richard Branson when he drove by on his baker’s bike delivering cheap vinyl record albums to record stores. I met Richard again in 1987 when I was in London discussing some options for tourism attraction to his Caribbean Island paradise in Necker Island. It’s more than 20 years since and I would love meeting Richard Branson again one day. Especially considering his recent accomplishments with Virgin Galactic.

A couple of days ago he unveiled the future of commercial space exploration at a Party only he can  throw. Introducing SpaceShipTwo (SS2) and its mothership, WhiteKnightTwo (WK2), are ready to herald a new era in commercial space flight with daily space tourism flights set to commence from Spaceport America in New Mexico after test programs and all required US government licensing is completed.

Virgin Founder, Sir Richard Branson and SpaceshipOne (SS1) designer, Burt Rutan, revealed SpaceShip2 to the public for the first time since construction of the world’s first manned commercial spaceship began in 2007.  SS2 has been designed to take many thousands of private astronauts into space after test programming and all required U.S. government licensing has been completed.

The unveiling represents another major milestone in Virgin Galactic’s quest to develop the World’s first commercial space line providing private sector access to space using an environmentally benign launch system for people, payload and science.  The spaceship draws on the experience developed during the successful flights of SS1 in 2004, which won the Ansari X-Prize for completing the world’s first manned private space flights.  The SS2 design will be refined and completed during an extensive test flying program to commence shortly, and it will be an entirely new vehicle capable of carrying up to 6 passenger astronauts and up to 2 pilot astronauts into space on a sub-orbital flight.

Subject to certain U.S. regulatory requirements that will guide the unveiling, SS2 will be attached to her WK2 mothership which was last year unveiled and named EVE after Sir Richard Branson’s mother. In the near future, WK2 will carry SS2 to above 50,000 feet (16 kilometres) before the spaceship is dropped and fires up her rocket engine to launch into space from that altitude. In honor of a long tradition of using the word Enterprise in the naming of Royal Navy, US Navy, NASA vehicles and even science fiction spacecraft, Governor Schwarzenegger of California and Governor Richardson of New Mexico christened SS2 with the name Virgin Space Ship (VSS) ENTERPRISE. This  represents not only an acknowledgment to that name’s honorable past, but also looks to the future of the role of private enterprise in the development of the exploration, industrialization and human habitation of space.

The emergence of new commercial space companies like Virgin Galactic has already proven an engine for employment, growth and the creation of a new technology and science base in the United States. Recent research has indicated that 12,500 jobs have already been created by the new space companies; the Virgin Galactic project alone is creating significant opportunities for employment in both the company itself and with suppliers in both California and New Mexico. Approximately 600 people are now working on activities relating to the project and it is estimated that this figure will rise to over 1,100 jobs during the peak of the construction phase at the space port and through the introduction of the commercial space vehicles into regular astronaut service.

Commenting on the unveiling a couple of days ago, Sir Richard said:  “This is truly a momentous day. The team has created not only a world first but also a work of art. The unveil of SS2 takes the Virgin Galactic vision to the next level and continues to provide tangible evidence that this ambitious project is not only moving rapidly, but also making tremendous progress towards our goal of safe commercial operation”.

Designer Burt Rutan, Founder of Scaled Composites added: “All of us at Scaled are tremendously excited by the capabilities of both the mothership and SS2.  Today is the culmination of a dream that began many decades ago, was stimulated by Paul Allen’s funding of our X-Prize winning SS1 and then moved forward to commercial reality by Sir Richard and Virgin’s visionary investment in a new future for space transportation”.

SpaceShipTwo was unveiled after darkness had fallen over the Mojave Desert to the sound of a space-themed anthem from Britain’s biggest DJs, Above & Beyond.  Fittingly titled “Buzz” the music track sample Buzz Aldrin’s original moon landing dialogue. Following the naming by Governors Richardson and Schwarzenegger, the DJs did perform an exclusive set at the celebration cocktail party which followed and featured the first ever IceBar in the desert and was hosted by Absolut and the world famous Swedish IceHotel. All the guests were protected from the desert cold by designer space jackets supplied by PUMA. Finally, to close off the celebrations, all the guests had the opportunity to view the stunning night skies using specialist telescopes supplied by Ron Dantowitz of the Clay Observatory whose unique tracking cameras followed SS1 into space during the epic flights of 2004.

Now this is what I call  creating jobs.

We should start dreaming a little bigger here in Florida. After all we had already a great example in Walt Disney. Time to get of our laurels and think big again. These are the well paying jobs of the future.

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