Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic plans to take people to space every day

Sir Richard Branson, who on Sunday made a trip to the edge of space, wants to take people to space every day. CEO of Branson’s company Virgin Galactic, Michael Colglazier said that they are targeting about 400 flights every year from all the spaceports. He, however, agreed that there are big hurdles when it comes to expansion in the short term and that it is going to be a very supply-constrained business.

“At every spaceport we’re going to target about 400 flights a year. I’m expecting high single-digit numbers to low double-digit numbers of spaceships at each site in order to kind of reach numbers like that,” said Colglazier in an interview with Financial Times.

Virgin Galactic aims to build the first commercial space tourism business. It will run two more test flights this year and start carrying paying passengers in 2022.

Colglazier said that the company plans to replace its current prototype spaceship with two new craft next year. The new crafts are designed to be maintained more easily. This will enable quicker turnarounds between flights.
                    
On Monday, the company said that it plans to raise up to $500 million by selling new shares in order to fund the development of the spaceship fleet, as mentioned in the daily.         

Virgin Galactic is also looking to expand its operations at its first base in New Mexico and find other spaceports to start taking this to more places, Colglazier said.

Currently, there is room for only four passengers on each flight. However, more than 600 people have signed up and put down an average of $130,000 each for a chance to fly to space. Around 1,000 more have paid $1,000 deposits. “I think for a while this is going to be a very supply-constrained business,” said Colglazier.

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