Just days after promising billions to fight climate change, Sir Richard Branson has unveiled the latest designs of his rocket-powered vehicle that will carry clients into space through his Virgin Galactic business. The Virgin “spaceships” are designed to carry six passengers and two pilots to an altitude of about 140km on a sub-orbital space flight. Tickets on a Virgin Galactic flight are expected to cost $190,000.

The passenger flights, which could begin in 2009, will take off from a $225m facility called Spaceport America in the New Mexico desert. Virgin Galactic is just one of several private firms vying to open up public access to space.

Is Branson a hypocrite – one minute saying that climate change is a real problem and days later announcing plans for commercial space travel, where rockets will cause immense damage to the atmosphere flying at that altitude.

Moreover, as rockets are much more polluting than planes, I hope Branson is going to power his rockets on biofuel. But somehow I doubt it. He could fuel them with his own hot air.

3 Comments

  • At least he is spending something of its profits to fight global warming.
    How much is NASA donating to do the same and contaminating the atmosphere a thousand times of what Branson is doing? Or maybe Exxon just signed a big fat check to help cleaning all the mess that he did? Or the U.S. Goverment has agreed even to admit the U.S. are emiting enormous amounts of CO2 and greenhouse gases to the atmosphere?

    But if you are one of those who think tha Global Warming is a mith maybe you should look at Canada and see if its true that a “Mithical” piece of ice just broke loose.

    So, you put the red flag on Branson for the launch of a tiny comercial rocket and say nothing about the huge part in the problem that is represented by the U.S. space program.

    Obviously YOU ARE THE HYPOCRITE…

    And I’m glad I do not live in the U.S.

    Walter Hernandez

  • Actually Walter, NASA does and has contributed a huge amount of research to further our understanding of climate change.

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