Virgin Galactic Company Actions - Research Paper Example

?Virgin Galactic Virgin Galactic, the first company to commercialize space flight for the public, was founded by innovative billionaire Richard Branson. Virgin Galactic makes part of a number of companies known as the Virgin Group which has vast experience with innovation and in the field of aviation. Each member of the Virgin Group shares common goals, ideas, and interests. Virgin Galactic is a unique project with a mission to transform cost, safety as well as environmental effect of access to small satellites, space and scientific research. Virgin Galactic’s willingness to invest and take risks is fueling innovative change in areas where government agencies and traditional industry have failed in the past. In pursuit of their mission, Virgin Galactic has acted as a proving ground for new technologies like using carbon composites in big sized aircrafts, which has applications across a many industrial sectors. This is why Virgin Galactic has been described as a significant industrial project in the twenty first century (virgin galactic.com, 2012). Branson was 19 years old when Apollo 11 took the first humans to the moon on July 16, 1969. On that day a young Richard Branson decided that he would experience the wonder of space. “Virgin Galactic's goal is to end the exclusivity attached to manned space travel, which means designing a vehicle that can fly almost anyone to space and back safely without the need for special expertise or exhaustive, time consuming training” (Virgin Galactic. com, 2012, par. 3). Virgin Galactic reviewed many spacecraft concepts before networking with Scaled Composites. Scaled Composites was founded by famed designer and builder of experimental aircraft Burt Rutan (Leonard, 2005). Virgin Galactic’s spacecraft and launch vehicles were designed with simplicity and redundancy in mind. A complex system has an increased chance of failure; therefore simplification and risk reduction pay a pivotal role in their design. Scaled Composites has an exceptional safety record and is responsible for some of the most innovative experimental aircraft in the world. September 27, 2004, Branson announced that Virgin Galactic would finance the design and construction of a fleet of commercial spacecraft that would take thousands of passengers to space and back safely (virgingalactic.com, 2012). In addition to commercial sub-orbital space flight, Virgin Galactic offers sub-orbital scientific missions as well as orbital satellite launches. According to Virgin Galactic’s Web site, the company and the New Mexico State revealed that they had made a historic agreement in 2005 that would see the building of a state-funded $200 million spaceport on a 27-square mile area of land. Virgin Galactic agreed to establish its headquarters and operate space flights from what would be known as Spaceport America in South Mexico (virgingalactic.com, 2012). New Mexico’s steady climate, high altitude, free airspace, and low population density make it an ideal location for the first commercial spaceport. Richard Branson and New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez recently dedicated the Virgin Galactic Gateway to Space at Spaceport America, New Mexico. Seven hundred guests gathered to celebrate the occasion and view a demonstration flight. There has been a steady increase in the interest in space tourism among engineers, scientist, entrepreneurs, and the general public. According to Virgin Galactic’s Web site, more than 500 tickets have been sold at US$200,000 per seat. The sky is no longer the limit and the market potential for this emerging industry is enormous. As the space tourism industry grows, they will need to cut their costs to remain competitive. Branson expects as many as five competing spaceship companies by 2020. He believes this competition will drive the price of a ticket down to a level that hundreds of thousands of passengers can afford to go to space (Allen, 2009). Several companies entering the market have already announced that their costs will be approximately half that of Virgin Galactic. The collaboration of Virgin Galactic and its sister companies of the Virgin Group is another strategy to provide them with a competitive advantage. Virgin Galactic is banking on the established reputation and brand recognition of the Virgin Group to instill a high level of confidence to customers. The combination of strong financial backing from the Virgin Group and cooperation among its sister companies, provide Virgin Galactic with reduced operating costs and an increased influence in the market. Virgin Galactic’s two main competitors do not possess similar partnerships with the associated support and benefits. Even with the name recognition associated Virgin Group, Virgin Galactic needs to ensure their passengers feel that they are getting their money’s worth. In the article, “Virgin looks beyond space tourism” by Jeff Foust, Virgin Galactic president George Whitesides explains how input from early customers helped evolve the design of their spacecraft. The company’s original plan was to develop a commercial version of SpaceShipOne. This plan was changed after discussions with Virgin Galactic’s first customers who said that for $200,000, they weren’t getting into a cramped environment with no more space than a MiG…we want to do what they do in the movies…experience weightlessness…move around the cabin.” This feedback resulted in the creation of the larger SpaceShipTwo. SpaceShipTwo’s cabin has reclining seats and large windows. The windows were added to allow passengers to view the ground from space. SpaceShipOne did not have windows because the glass added more weight than the composite material that would occupy the space. Reclined seats reduce the effects of the G forces experienced during atmospheric exit and re-entry. SpaceShipTwo also has improved safety by adding a double-skinned outer layer to protect the pilots and passengers in the event one of the skins is penetrated by debris. SpaceShipTwo carries passengers on a three-hour flight, blasting them to an altitude of 360,000 feet MSL and giving them up to seven minutes of zero-gravity experience. As an added value, passengers officially become astronauts by traveling more than 50 miles into space. Space tourism and the industries that spin off from it have the potential to generate immeasurable revenues. An avenue that was previously open only to a few is now opening up for the public and industries in the private sector. The private space race has the potential to spur a similar surge in innovation and growth as the levels seen during the original space race. Space tourism is not just restricted to sub-orbital flights—its horizons can be expanded to previously unimaginable limits such as sub-orbital travel, which would dramatically reduce the time of intercontinental flights, space mining, the space hotel by Bigelow Aerospace, futuristic concepts for constructions in space, and the harnessing of unlimited solar power and transmitting it to earth. With the dawn of the private space race at hand, private interests are enthusiastically pursuing the space tourism industry; the competitive spirit in the space arena has reemerged. Virgin Galactic and companies like it are making the dream of spaceflight a reality. Virgin Galactic unveiled LauncherOne to enable more people to access space. It is an innovative tool in space commercialization. This launch vehicle will enable dramatically more users and people in general to benefit from space. Satellite manufacture can be traced back to decades. Many components of the satellite follow the Moore’s Law curve of exponential technology improvement. Today satellites can work magnificently work with very little. Small satellites are able to bring transformation in the use of spacecrafts for life improvement on earth (virgingalactic.com, 2012). Small satellites which are less expensive, appeal to both new entities that have considerations of taking their first mission to space and to users who are already established feeling the sense of fixed or declining budgets. Without a launch vehicle, small satellites however, cannot be effective fully. The optimized launch vehicle meets the precise needs and capabilities of the satellite. Virgin Galactic dedicates itself to see dramatic reduction of prices to get to space. It already built a new generation of reusable spacecrafts for carrying astronauts on suborbital flights. This saw the payment of deposits for the life time experience by more than five hundred astronauts. This world’s first commercial spaceline came to its realization through the able support of the private investors and the support of customers, and, also through Virgin Galactic’s assembling of the infrastructure and the team which were necessary to make the project successful (Virgin Galantic.com, 2012). Virgin Galactic is taking advantage of this background, to build and operate a new vehicle to give the operators of the satellite to give an inherently better option to carry their small satellite to orbit. They achieve this by using much of the similar infrastructure initially created for the support of SpaceShipTwo. The unique and high performance WhiteNightTwo mothership in particular, provides a chance of keeping prices low while taking into consideration the needs of the customers for flexibility and launch availability. It is a winning combination which is ready to roll in the market and see its success in the journey to space (virgin galactic.com, 2012). The Virgin Galactic website shows the possibility of staging LauncherOne’s operations from various launch sites; this is an advantage of LauncherOne. Selected launch sites allow customers to optimize performance and to get the best value out of their ride to space in the satellite. Virgin Galactic’s plan to base the WhiteKnightTwo at SpacePort America which they consider to be home to the suborbital programs. They coordinated with the customers and regulatory bodies to see to it that WhiteNightTwo flies out to the launch facilities of customers and operate from there. The system allows for minimum level of range costs for the customers and minimal amount of ground infrastructure (Royal Aeronautical Society et al., 2009). Virgin Galactic is looking to the operations of LauncherOne conducted in the United States in the near future. Other places like Abu Dhabi will require undertaking of various regulations to stage the same. The manufacture of LauncherOne stages and shroud will take place at the FAITH production facility, which is The Spaceship Company’s facility. The manufacture of the engines, structures, and Launch vehicle/Pylon Interface will all take place at the facility. World-class suppliers will supply other components such as secondary subsystems and avionic (Virgin Galantic.com, 2012). Based on the precise requirements of the mission, Virgin Galactic plans to mate the first and second stages of LauncherOne, check it out and ship to the primary staging base for purposes of storage. LauncherOne can remain without fuel while in storage, but with batteries with full charge to provide support for avionics operations until the arrival of the customer’s spacecraft and WhiteKnightTwo. Virgin Galactic designed WhiteKnightTwo initially for carrying SpaceShipTwo. It has a proven capability for launch-on-demand and rapid call up. Its successful completion of captive carry missions with SpaceShipTwo with quick turnarounds, as quick as twenty four hours, is impressive and captivating. Virgin Galactic will release LauncherOne at time and point in space, at approximately 50,000 feet above sea level. It will then free fall for around four seconds before the ignition of first stage. The two stages are in sequential operation, with the second stage potentially relighting, and the delivery of the payload to a designated low earth orbit. Virgin Galactic’s unveiling of LauncherOne will take space tourist and space commercialization to a new level. The company reports a sign up by many customers. Virgin Galactic seeks to widen space tourism and space commercialization, Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and Scaled Composites founded The Spaceship Company, TSC, for production of new aerospace. The company is constructing a fleet of launch aircrafts and commercial spaceships. This will enable the realization of space travel wide spreading (virgingalactic.com, 2012). Virgin Galactic made a contract to purchase two WhiteKnightTwo twos and five SpaceShipTwo. Other companies e.g. the Blue Origin in the U.K, Copenhagen Sub-Orbitals, Space-X and others are venturing in to this industry, and a healthy competition in the building of spaceships and spacecraft. They are all working towards passenger commercialized sub-orbital flights to the space. Virgin Galactic continues in the innovation of accessing space. The unveiling of the reviewed LauncherOne was the critical point of success in the direction toward space tourism and commercialization of space. The company has dedicated itself to development in this sector through restructuring satellites and utilizing existing potentials to make the best out of it, and more importantly, cut down on the cost of space flights. This is an avenue to indirectly make their services more economical and viable. Other companies are partnering with Virgin Galactic to give support to the realization of successful and comparatively low-cost space tourism. These companies also express their interest in recognition of association to such a rewarding and exciting course and in the making of history. They partner through investments and signing of various agreements which will facilitate the smoother running of the programs at hand. Virgin Galactic commits itself to promote educational opportunities and new research. It regards research highly and a core part of its mission is to provide researchers and their experiments a routine, affordable and safe access to space. SpaceShipTwo, for example, has innovative novel features, making it a versatile and attractive platform for research which will allow the collection of study questions and date by engineers, educators, and scientists, like never before (virgingalactic.com, 2012). Virgin Galactic offers two categories of research flights on SpaceShipTwo as they enter licensure: Researchers and Payloads. The researchers who will be on board will be on a wide range of fields; corporate or academic, students or teachers, engineers or scientists. These groups will have the precious opportunity to become astronauts on the spaceship to carry out experiments and conduct research. The second category of payloads, up to 1300pounds worth of payloads mounted on the payload rack system, which replaces the seat places which the astronauts or passengers would normally take. In this category, Virgin Galactic ensures leading standards for the mounting space experience (Rother, 2010). The payload rack system is just fantastic for the job. It comprises Mid-Deck Lockers, Cube-Sats; Equipment racks which (19inches). It also accommodates special payload sizes on a basis of case-by-case. . They also have a test engineer in the flight that monitors and interacts with the payloads to ensure that everything meets the requirements (virgingalactic.com, 2012). Virgin Galactic also has expectations to avail WhiteKnightTwo for research and payload purposes as a way of creating more avenues and means of supporting and broadening space research. This is due to the capabilities of the WhiteKnightTwo of loitering at more than 50,000 feet of altitude for extended durations and the capability to carry large payloads (Foust, 2009). Virgin Galactic takes a bold step in massive investment on an industry which is virgin. The industry of commercial space flight is yet to undergo exploration. The Virgin Group is boldly and innovatively taking risks in space tourism and space flights. The effects of the realization of the innovation will ripple across different fields. As a result of comparatively affordable flights to space, research and education will scale to new heights (Solomon, 2008). Although some might look at space tourism at the current cost as a ride for the rich, the experience will be more of value-for-money experience. The company is also working on expansion of space tourism to cut costs and ensure affordability. The satellites are very useful tools in monitoring the environment. The achievement of this monitoring is through the detection of changes in the vegetation of the earth, the state of the sea, the color of the ocean, gas content atmospheric trace and ice fields. The long-term monitoring of the environment will help in monitoring conditions such as droughts and establishing the cause of ills like global warming which will perhaps lead to provision of a solution to the environmental challenges on earth (Virgin Galantic, 2012). Research on space craft launch on the environment shows that spacecraft contribute very little to the current ozone problems. Virgin Galactic through its development and innovation of satellite launching will thus be the agent of transformation and positively effect environmental factors on the globe. Virgin Galactic is reasonably the pioneers of the next big things in spacecraft. The LauncherOne which is reportedly starting to loft payloads to orbit in 2016 (Leonard, 2005) is a breakthrough in space flights. Their plan to commercialize space flights for space tourism, research and education, is a milestone in the spacecraft industry. The company is confident that it will see a successful commercialization of space flights, given its benefits to tourists, education and research. They are looking forward to an exciting, captivating and successful launch of the first passengers on short suborbital jaunts in the course of the year 2013 (Nick, 2009). LauncherOne, according to the company, could start lofting payloads to orbit by the year 2016. The company’s boldness in venturing into this field which is not ventured into before is credible. Their contribution to the realization of flights to the space and commercialization of the same through innovative creations and measures cannot be overemphasized; they do not go unnoticed. Space tourism will generate enormous revenues as it is a field which has significant enormous cost to production. The plan to make it feasible to customers and affordable will in the long-run result in a rise in demand for space tourism and consequently generation of higher revenue. Virgin Galactic will make history in space tourism once LauncherOne takes the first passengers to space. Its plan for expansion is yet to come to pass; it requires massive investment and major risk-taking but it is worth the course. The growing interest of the various groups of people; scientists, engineers, educationists and the general public in space tourism will realize their needs met through the mentioned various upcoming innovations and developments by Virgin Galactic. SpaceShipTwo, WhiteKnightTwo and LauncherOne are the milestones in this arena of space flight and consequently space tourism. References Foust, J. (2009). Virgin looks beyond space tourism. Retrieved from http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1304/1. Leonard, D. (2005). Richard Branson and Burt Rutan Form Spacecraft Building Company. Retrieved from http://www.space.com/1356-richard-branson-burt-rutan-form-spacecraft- building-company.html. Nick, A. (2009). Richard Branson unveils Virgin Galactic's spaceship Enterprise. Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/6761213/Richard-Branson-unveils- Virgin- Galactics-spaceship-Enterprise.html. Rother, B. (2010). Virgin Galactic's space tourism. Retrieved from feelsynapsis.com/mod/file/download.php?file_guid=25288. Royal Aeronautical Society., Logica Ltd., VEGA Group., & Virgin Galactic. (2009). Space tourism: A new industry in the making. London, U.K: Royal Aeronautical Society. Solomon, L. D. (2008). The privatization of space exploration: Business, technology, law and policy. New Brunswick, N.J: Transaction Publishers. Virgin Galactic, (2012). Homepage. Retrieved from http://www.virgingalactic.com. Read More