Escaping from the Big Bad Wolf of Mojave that blew his party tent down, Virgin Galactic President Will Whitehorn flew to Naples, Florida, where he pitched his company’s space tourism service to a couple of groups:
Some Forum attendees Friday questioned the project’s safety and wondered if a catastrophic accident could kill the project.
“Safety is the North Star of the whole project,†Whitehorn said, adding that an accident early in the effort could ground the ship, but an accident say ten years in could be overcome.
But Whitehorn isn’t planning on any accidents.
“This will be safer than driving a car down I-75,†he said.
Oh, one other fact gleaned from the Naples News story: development costs are apparently soaring to nearly half a billion.
Virgin Galactic’s $450 million price tag is an astronomical figure, Whitehorn said, unless it’s compared to a single shuttle launch at $1 billion. It’s environmental impact is that of one business class ticket from New York to London while the Space Shuttle’s is that of a 1-kiloton nuclear explosion.
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