WHAT?!
AUSTRALIA appears to have been beaten to the punch as a potential base for a space tourism industry by wealthy interests in other countries.
Virgin Galactic chairman Richard Branson was touting Australia as a site for a Galactic spaceport as recently as last year.
But Sir Richard said that several countries were now bidding for the spaceports as the project moves closer to reality -- and Australia was not among them.
"Because spaceship programs are not cheap to develop, I think we're going to prioritise one or two of the countries that are paying quite considerable sums of money for us to go there first," he said.
Sir Richard said Australia could conceivably participate in the bidding, but Galactic had not asked authorities here whether they were interested.
"We've got three Middle Eastern countries competing for one spaceport in the Middle East," he said. "Right now I think they've got deeper pockets than some other countries."
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So Branson's going after the cash wherever else despite having almost literal Money Bins worth to swim in.
(And we all know how often we see the Middle East as a safe place to venture into versus Australia. * headdesk*)
He dumps us, then gives an LED of hope:
"One day, I hope that our engineers will be able to put commercial planes into orbit and take off from Sydney and land in New York within an hour, an hour and a half.
I think one day it will happen -- hopefully in our lifetimes."
So much for the VSS Enterprise docking here.
*draws a line through Branson in his "people to like/admire" list*
Virgin Galactic chairman Richard Branson was touting Australia as a site for a Galactic spaceport as recently as last year.
But Sir Richard said that several countries were now bidding for the spaceports as the project moves closer to reality -- and Australia was not among them.
"Because spaceship programs are not cheap to develop, I think we're going to prioritise one or two of the countries that are paying quite considerable sums of money for us to go there first," he said.
Sir Richard said Australia could conceivably participate in the bidding, but Galactic had not asked authorities here whether they were interested.
"We've got three Middle Eastern countries competing for one spaceport in the Middle East," he said. "Right now I think they've got deeper pockets than some other countries."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So Branson's going after the cash wherever else despite having almost literal Money Bins worth to swim in.
(And we all know how often we see the Middle East as a safe place to venture into versus Australia. * headdesk*)
He dumps us, then gives an LED of hope:
"One day, I hope that our engineers will be able to put commercial planes into orbit and take off from Sydney and land in New York within an hour, an hour and a half.
I think one day it will happen -- hopefully in our lifetimes."
So much for the VSS Enterprise docking here.
*draws a line through Branson in his "people to like/admire" list*