Date: 2024-05-14 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00016963
Technology
Space Travel
Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic prepares to go public ... Deal will help fund venture until its spaceships can operate commercially and make profit
Peter Burgess
Virgin Galactic’s Virgin Spaceship Unity on a test flight from Mojave, California, to the edge of space. Photograph: Virgin Galactic/PA
Virgin Galactic, Sir Richard Branson’s space tourism venture, is to go public in a $1.3bn deal, as it prepares to take the first paying passengers into space.
The British firm has agreed to sell a 49% stake to a shell company that is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and will become the world’s first listed space tourism venture.
A special-purpose acquisition firm, Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings, set up by the former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya, will pay $1.3bn for the stake – $1bn of shares valued at $10 apiece and up to $300m of cash. This includes a $100m investment pledged by Palihapitiya when the deal is completed later this year.
He said: “We are confident that Virgin Galactic is light years ahead of the competition. It is backed by an exciting business model and an uncompromising commitment to safety and customer satisfaction. I cannot wait to take my first trip to space and become an astronaut.”
George Whitesides will remain chief executive of Virgin Galactic while a new seven-director board will be chaired by Palihapitiya. Adam Bain, a former Twitter executive, will also sit on the board.
Branson said: “We can open space to more investors and in doing so, open space to thousands of new astronauts. We are at the dawn of a new space age, with huge potential to improve and sustain life on Earth.
Saudi Arabia had planned to plough $1bn into Virgin Galactic in 2017, but Branson suspended the talks a year later after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a dissident journalist, at the Saudi consulate in Turkey.
This means Branson’s firm will avoid an initial public offering with a costly investor roadshow, five years after an explosion during a test flight killed one pilot and seriously injured another.
Virgin Galactic believes the investment will provide enough capital to fund the business until its spaceships can operate commercially and generate a profit. It has already raised more than $1bn, mostly from Branson, since it was created in 2004.
About 600 people in 60 countries have paid $80m in deposits to secure seats on the first flights, the firm said. During the 90-minute flight, which costs $250,000, passengers will experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see the Earth’s curvature.
Branson’s firm is racing to become the first commercial venture to take passengers into space next year. It is initially selling 700 tickets for flights lasting about six minutes.
In December, Virgin Galactic launched a rocket plane into space for the first time. In February, a test flight carried a passenger for the first time in addition to the two pilots: Beth Moses, the chief astronaut instructor at Virgin Galactic, who previously worked for Nasa. Branson is expected to board his ship himself soon.
Moses told Aviation Week she had been weightless for several minutes during the flight and had left her seat to float twice but had felt “squished” into it when the ship re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere.
Branson’s firm is competing with those of other tech billionaires in the race to take people to the moon – Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX.
Blue Origin, the company owned by the Amazon chief executive, wants to transport people to the moon by 2024, it announced in May, when it unveiled its Blue Moon lander, an unmanned spacecraft that can carry up to 6.5 tonnes of cargo.
Musk, the chief executive of the electric carmaker Tesla, is working to bring passengers to Mars with SpaceX. The first cargo mission is planned for 2022 and the first crewed mission for 2024.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q&A Who's who in private space travel Show Sign up to the daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDesk
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You’ve read 8 articles...
... in the last two weeks. If you’ve enjoyed reading, we hope you will consider supporting our independent, investigative journalism today. More people around the world are reading and supporting The Guardian than ever before. And unlike many new organisations, we have chosen an approach that allows us to keep our journalism accessible to all, regardless of where they live or what they can afford. But we need your ongoing support to keep working as we do.
The Guardian will engage with the most critical issues of our time – from the escalating climate catastrophe to widespread inequality to the influence of big tech on our lives. At a time when factual information is a necessity, we believe that each of us, around the world, deserves access to accurate reporting with integrity at its heart.
Our editorial independence means we set our own agenda and voice our own opinions. Guardian journalism is free from commercial and political bias and not influenced by billionaire owners or shareholders. This means we can give a voice to those less heard, explore where others turn away, and rigorously challenge those in power.
We need your support to keep delivering quality journalism, to maintain our openness and to protect our precious independence. Every reader contribution, big or small, is so valuable. Support The Guardian from as little as $1 – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.
Support The Guardian Accepted payment methods: Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Paypal