There are several companies competing in the suborbital tourism market: Virgin Galactic, Rocketplane, Space Adventures, among others. By in large the companies have said little about each other in public, other than a few glittering generalities or, at worst, some very general dismissals of unnamed rivals. In the cover story of the latest issue of Arabian Business, Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson and Will Whitehorn has some less-than-kind things to say about Space Adventures, however:
Branson is dismissive, telling Arabian Business: “A lot of companies around the world are now offering space travel, but no-one else has made the same progress as us. People have to be careful about paying deposits. I don’t want to name any companies, but we have looked at all the different kinds of technology. We looked at Russian technology and we dismissed it. We looked at a lot of US technology, and we dismissed it.”
His Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn is even more disparaging of the claims coming out of Ras Al-Khaimah and Space Adventures, adding: “They haven’t actually built a system that works. It has never flown. It is a plywood mock-up in the middle of Russia. I favour competition but only when it exists. You shouldn’t sell people dreams that don’t work.”
The Ras Al-Khaimah reference above is to plans announced by Space Adventures in February to set up a spaceport in the emirate, part of the UAE. That spaceport will be at the Ras Al-Khaimah International Airport, but the Arabian Business notes that several companies—the three mentioned above plus the Canadian-US venture PlanetSpace—have been checking out an unused airstrip in the emirate for possible conversion into a spaceport. As the article notes, “local residents have for several months noticed the fleets of limousines that regularly pull up, circle the area for half an hour, then disappear.” Officials from these four companies have apparently all been passengers in those limos.
Space Adventures isn’t lying low, though. Richard Branson was in Dubai last week, primarily to publicize the beginning of Virgin Atlantic flights to the UAE, but also to discuss potential Virgin Galactic flights from RAK. During that trip Space Adventures announced that it would fly the first UAE national, Adnan Al Maimani, on one of its flights from the RAK airport. “I am honored to represent the UAE as the first national to fly to space, but even more thrilling is that I’ll launch from Ras Al-Khaimah,” he said in a Space Adventures press release. “If I could fly today, I would!”
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