TO BE taken seriously, the fledgling space tourism industry needed a serious backer. This week, it got one. Richard Branson announced the creation of Virgin Galactic, a company that could start offering commercial space flights as early as 2007.
Branson told a news conference on 27 September that he had “signed a historical deal to license SpaceShipOne’s technology”. SpaceShipOne, a craft built by the US company Scaled Composites, made its first successful flight to the edge of space on 21 June. As Â鶹´«Ã½ went to press, it was being readied to fly again on 29 September, for the first of two flights less than two…
