Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Practicing liftoff of commercial space travel, Virgin Galactic visionary, Richard Branson.
Credit: Jack Brockway

The space future comes into sharp focus by the farsighted entrepreneur Richard Branson in a special series of articles as part of Aviation Week & Space Technology’s special centennial issue.

Branson has created Virgin Galactic’s commercial spaceline, the LauncherOne small-satellite launch service, and an aerospace manufacturing arm – The Spaceship Company.

Richard Branson during February 19 roll out ceremonies for new SpaceShipTwo at the Mojave Air and Space Port.
Credit: Leonard David

Greater purpose

Branson has shared his thoughts on the future of space exploration.

“At Virgin Galactic, our early building blocks are our human commercial spaceflight program and our small-satellite launch service. Even as we focus now on the ground tests of our ambitious projects, we are constantly mindful of the greater purpose of it all, and of what might come next,” Branson writes.

SpaceShipThree

Taking a long look at where his space efforts are going, Branson explains that as important and ambitious as SpaceShipTwo and LauncherOne are, “they are not an endpoint but rather one step.”

LauncherOne hauls satellites into orbit.
Credit: Virgin Galactic

Branson adds: “We don’t yet know exactly what SpaceShipThree or LauncherTwo will look like, but we do know what we want our future vehicles to do—and how we think our contribution to the exploration of space can help make our planet a better place to live.”

For your read of Branson’s space views, go to:

http://aviationweek.com/space/next-100-years-richard-branson

Special thanks to Frank Morring of Aviation Week & Space Technology for assisting in this posting.