Very interesting historical parallel. You have a good point: space tourism is extremely expensive and the customer base is extremely small, perhaps too small to sustain a business without other, more reliable income.
I get the sense that one bad day with casualties could be the end. Blue Origin has been safe thus far. Blue Origin is a very cautious company. Four people died during the development of SpaceShipTwo. An accident with a Delta class ship could add eight more to that number.
Suborbital tourism was such a radical idea back in 2004 when Branson announced it. The shuttle was still grounded at the time. Here was a private company planning to give thousands of people rides to space. They were, it seemed, ahead of everyone on suborbital tourism and air launching satellites. Tech was so hard to scale up they lost their lead.
Very interesting historical parallel. You have a good point: space tourism is extremely expensive and the customer base is extremely small, perhaps too small to sustain a business without other, more reliable income.
Thank you. Sorry for the late reply.
I get the sense that one bad day with casualties could be the end. Blue Origin has been safe thus far. Blue Origin is a very cautious company. Four people died during the development of SpaceShipTwo. An accident with a Delta class ship could add eight more to that number.
Thank you.
Suborbital tourism was such a radical idea back in 2004 when Branson announced it. The shuttle was still grounded at the time. Here was a private company planning to give thousands of people rides to space. They were, it seemed, ahead of everyone on suborbital tourism and air launching satellites. Tech was so hard to scale up they lost their lead.