06/27/2020
Credits: The Verge Networks International & The Vox Media.
Richard Branson’s space tourism venture, Virgin Galactic, will start coordinating private astronaut trips to the International Space Station for NASA — a new partnership aimed at increasing commercial use of the space agency’s orbiting outpost.
Thanks to a new Space Act Agreement with NASA, Virgin Galactic is tasked with putting together a “new private orbital astronaut readiness program,” for the agency. That means finding companies or organizations with an interest in sending people to the space station — for whatever reason — and then finding the right transportation to get them up there. Virgin Galactic will also be responsible for coordinating the necessary resources, both in space and on the ground, to make these trips successful.
It’s a similar mission to that of Space Adventures, a space tourism company that has put together trips to space for wealthy tourists. However, Virgin Galactic says it’s looking for a wide variety of customers, beyond the ones who just want a fun trip to space. “This is not just for potentially private space travelers, but could also be for researchers or even government researchers,” George Whitesides, Virgin Galactic’s CEO, tells The Verge, noting that people from all over the world could fly through this program.
