The quote comes from an episode of season two of The West Wing.  The president is trying to impress upon his press secretary the sense of adventure one feels when quoting the name of this fictional space mission.  He goes on to chide her for not saying the name correctly.

I personally do not find the name Galileo Five to be particularly inspirational, but Virgin Galactic… now there’s a name!  The first time I heard the name, it gave me goose pimples, and again the first time I spoke it aloud, which I clearly remember doing.  Virgin Galactic.  As the president said, “Your imagination, like a child, will explode with unrestrained possibilities for adventure.”

I wish I had been present in the meeting when that name was conceived.  I wish I had been there to congratulate whoever thought of it, for its simplicity, its commercial relevance and phonetic juxtaposition to Virgin Atlantic, and for its intrinsically inspirational poetry.  Virgin Galactic.  Go on, say it.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about then you have no sense of fun.

As a child I recall hearing of various famous people that had bought tickets for the first commercial flights into space, or to the moon and I recall wondering how that could be.  Given that nobody knew for sure whether it would ever happen, and if it did, which company might genuinely at that future point be able to offer such a service, I failed to believe that the tickets were in any way valid, or could ever be honoured.  It seems time has proven me correct, given that commercial space flights do not seem to appeal to NASA, some of the airlines around back then have went out of business, and the first commercial space tourist took his flight aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket for the literally astronomical price of twenty million dollars.  Rock stars with meaningless reservations for flights that would never happen must have been kicking themselves.

The age of commercial spaceflight was born, by no means before time.  So where are we now with Virgin Galactic’s promise to get commercial flights off the ground (honestly, I’m sorry for the pun, but it was an appropriate idiom) by 2008?  Whilst writing this article, my research has been so extensive as for me to check the calendar, and I was shocked to find that it is in fact now 2008.  What of Virgin Galactic’s progress to bring the cost of commercial spaceflight out of the domain of the superrich and into the domain of the merely rich?

Their own website has scaled back the launch date for the programme, with one page stating that safety is of utmost importance, and therefore they are progressing with an as soon as viable schedule.  Another page on the same site states that it could be as early as 2009.  So it would seem that the timeline is fluid, but anyone that has been waiting since 1991 for the new Guns n Roses album will be familiar with the sting of an annually renewed promise that this is the year, only to find that in fact, it is not.

I would also say that the uncertainty of a launch date is a little disconcerting.  I have seen enough films and newsreels to know that NASA plan their launches to the second, and well in advance.  I’m not sure I would trust a space agency that has the punctuality of a minicab driver and the organisational and time management skills of a dentist’s receptionist.  The first successful flight of the imaginatively titled SpaceShipOne (which has the wondrous simplicity of Virgin Galactic, but without the same inspirational quality) was a few years ago now, so how can it be taking so long to figure out how to put extra seats in?  Perhaps SpaceShipTwo (the commercial version) should have been called SpaceShipZafira given the ease of exploiting extra seating capacity, or SpaceShipDiscovery, another car suffix with additional seats in the boot.  Of course, the name Discovery has already been taken by NASA, so perhaps this is a non-starter, but at least that would be in keeping with the nature of the programme.

The website is full of exciting rhetoric and cool new terms to make commercial spaceflight seem almost normal, or certainly attainable.  Book your ticket through an accredited Space Agent, for your flight from a Space Port, bearing in mind that the first part of the flight will be powered by the Mother Ship; it all sounds so cool.

I know I poke fun, but honestly, I do find the name Virgin Galactic to be inspirational, and it is inevitable that such an ambitious project will be delayed and difficult to predict.  I’m just pleased that someone has finally committed to providing this service so long after it originally came to seem viable, back in the last millennium.  Though it may not be here yet, it would seem that regular, dedicated commercial spaceflights will soon be a reality.  There was too long a delay between man finding his way into space and the birth of commercial spaceflight.  In another episode of The West Wing, the chief of staff is bemoaning the technological promises of the previous century that were never fulfilled.  His deputy cited the personal computer as a counter-argument to which he replied, “A more efficient delivery system for gossip and pornography.  Where's my jet-pack, my colonies on the Moon? Just a waste.”

At least Virgin Galactic are trying.

So how much will it cost, this ticket for an as yet unspecified date for a short flight into space?  It’s a snip at a mere $200,000.  Like I said, it brings commercial spaceflight down from the domain of the superrich, and into the domain of the merely rich.  So if I sell my house, and yours, and someone gives me a third house to live in, I’m so there.

Written by Dave Scott ©

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