Virgin Galactic is an American space flight company. Richard Branson and his British virgin group was the founder of Virgin Galactic. The company headquarters is in California, USA, and it operates from New Mexico. The company aims to provide space flights for space tourists.
FOUNDER OF VIRGIN GALACTIC:
In 2004, Richard Branson founded the Virgin Galactic company. He was born on July 18, 1950. He dropout the school, and he started a business with a magazine student. He failed in business; he losses so much money.
He considered himself as looser but, he didn’t give up. He started a virgin order record for funds. In 1971, he started the first British discount record store. In 1984, he sponsored the airline and renamed it Virgin Atlantic Airways.
STARTUP AND SUCCESS OF COMPANY:
He started with one plane and succeeded in an airline company. He wanted some money to develop the Virgin Atlantic, so he sold virgin records. In 2004, the virgin galactic company got licensed, and it gets funded by Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, and it was designed by Burt Rutan(an aeronautical engineer).
Rutan was confident that 50,000 people could travel to space. Richard Branson’s sold so many tickets for $300,000 for each. On July 11 July 2021, Richard launched the flight with pilots David Mackay, Michael Masucci, and employees of virgin galactic. For a virgin galactic company, so many other companies helped for it and gave funds.
HOTELS AND HEALTH CARE AND CHARITABLE INFLUENCE:
In the year 2008, virgin health care said it would open other health care centres like homoeopathy, medical care, etc., for people. It was approved by the UK health minister Ben Bradshaw. Virgin Hotels was established in 2010 as part of the Virgin Group.
Branson said in February 2018 that the first Virgin hotel in the United Kingdom had opened in Edinburgh. Virgin Care began a five-year contract in April 2012 to provide a variety of health services that had before been provided by NHS Surrey, the local primary care trust.
Virgin Care was in charge of nearly 240 services around the country by March 2015. Branson revealed intentions to build LauncherOne, an orbital space launch mechanism, in July 2012.
Branson announced his investment in 3D Robotics, a drone business, in September 2014, saying, It’s incredible what a small flying object with a GoPro attached can do. Before their arrival, the only other option was to hire a costly helicopter and crew.
PANDEMIC DIFFICULTIES:
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when international air travel fell by roughly 60% globally, Branson and Virgin drew fire by ordering employees to take eight weeks of unpaid vacation. Branson used his luxury Necker Island as collateral for a commercial loan to keep Virgin Atlantic from going bankrupt in the wake of the global pandemic.
Branson stated This is the most challenging time we have ever faced in the five decades I have been in business. From a business standpoint, the loss to many is unprecedented, and the duration of the disruption is unknown.
Richard Branson, Beth Moses, Sirisha Bandla, and Colin Bennett flew to the edge of space (86 kilometers or 53 miles) in a Virgin Galactic spacecraft called VSS Unity on July 11 July 2021. As a result, he became the first wealthy space industry founder to travel to the edge of space.
FUTURE PLANS OF COMPANY:
By 2023, the business intends to send a passenger shuttle into orbit every 32 hours on average, which is more than one ride every other day. According to Business Insider, the idea was to sell tickets to customers in 2020.
Passengers on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo will fly to a height of 100 kilometers for $250,000 each, where they will experience weightlessness for a few minutes while looking down on Earth — which sounds a lot like the long-awaited dream of space tourism, at least for the mega-rich.
CONCLUSION:
Virgin Cola, Virgin Cars, Virgin Publishing, Virgin Clothing, and Virgin Brides are a few of Branson’s unsuccessful commercial initiatives. Branson sees failure as a positive experience.
He has written the following: I believe the key to bouncing back is not just to fear failure but also to use it as a motivator and learning tool. He failed at starting and failed in some businesses, but he became a great man.
Read More: Space Tourism – Mankind’s Next Big Leap
