London (AFP)
The Virgin Galactic space tourism company announced Tuesday the upcoming lifting of hundreds of millions of dollars of fresh money in order to send, finally, its first customers in space - within a year, promises its director general.
The company will become "the very first listed space tourism company," she said.
Virgin Galactic was hitherto funded almost exclusively by the billionaire who founded it in 2004, Britain's Richard Branson. After years of development, delayed by a fatal accident in 2014, the spacecraft exists and has crossed the border twice, but never with paying customers.
"We plan to do it in a year," said George Whitesides, the managing director.
In the meantime, test flights by elite pilots will continue. The company is also moving into its "spaceport" from which tourists will take off in the New Mexico desert in the United States.
The new money will come from a Wall Street investment company, Social Capital Hedosophia (SCH), with whom Virgin Galactic will merge in the second half of the year. It will hold 49% of the new entity. Estimated value: $ 1.5 billion.
The boss of SCH, Chamath Palihapitiya, will become the president of the company. He himself invested 100 million.
Richard Branson recently estimated that the company was costing him about $ 35 million a month, for a total investment of more than $ 1 billion.
The new money - we do not know how much will actually be invested - will be welcome. Virgin was to raise $ 1 billion from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund. But Mr. Branson suspended talks with Ryad during the Khashoggi affair.
- Patience for the customers ... -
Virgin Galactic will offer a few minutes of weightlessness to six passengers at a time. They will float in the cabin and will see the curvature of the Earth, under a black sky, by large portholes.
The ship is a hybrid between an airplane and a rocket. It is dropped at altitude by a carrier, then lights its engine and goes straight to the sky, at three times the speed of sound, to cross the arbitrary border of space, set at 80 km altitude in the United States. United (the international convention is 100 km). Then he descends to Earth like a cannonball, hovers and lands like a plane.
Virgin Galactic says it has pre-sold 600 tickets to potential tourists, who have deposited a total of $ 80 million in bonds (pre-sales have ceased).
To make them wait for years, the company cajole its customers. "Last week, we organized a great trip for our customers in Chile to see the solar eclipse," says George Whitesides.
"Very few" have asked to be reimbursed over the years, he says. And about 2,500 people are on the waiting list to buy a ticket - enough to cover "the bulk of the first three or four years" of operation.
The price, moreover, will increase initially, compared to the original $ 250,000.
"When you take into account the development costs, the costs of creating the service and the value provided, the price has probably been undervalued," says the CEO. "The price will probably increase, but in the long run, we hope to lower the price," reducing the cost of manufacturing vessels.
Its main competitor is Blue Origin, founded by Amazon's billionaire boss Jeff Bezos.
Blue Origin will also offer a few minutes in weightlessness, but aboard a small rocket that takes off vertically, reaches the space, and falls with parachutes.
Blue points out that it exceeds 100 km above sea level ... higher than Virgin Galactic.
"From an experience point of view, I do not think it changes anything," says George Whitesides.
In any case, these short jumps in space will be cheaper than the more distant space travel and tens of millions of dollars promised by Elon Musk and his company SpaceX.
? 2019 AFP