Finding My Virginity: The New Autobiography

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Finding My Virginity: The New Autobiography Page 22

by Richard Branson


  Months earlier I had had the idea of approaching Sheikh Mansour, Deputy Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and one of the world’s richest men. I knew he was fascinated by space travel, and wondered if he would be interested in investing in Virgin Galactic. Flying over Abu Dhabi, I decided to land and take a chance. One of the advantages of being relatively well known is that I can often get through to very busy people on short notice. I managed to get an appointment to see the Mansour family the following day.

  I spent the night creating a considered, detailed analysis of the investment opportunity. But as I walked into his beautiful home, all of that went out of the window. I was nervous. I did not know the Sheikh, and was slightly out of my comfort zone. As soon as I saw the half-dozen men gathered around the table and took a sip of water, I knew I needed to appeal to their imaginations. I used my hands a lot, illustrating my vision of a future Spaceport in Abu Dhabi, and the opportunity to be at the cutting edge of a whole new industry democratizing space. They looked intrigued, but I still felt vulnerable—the future of Virgin Galactic, and my life’s dreams, could possibly be at stake in this room. For a moment, I wasn’t sure which way the meeting was going to go. But then the Sheikh broke into a smile. By the end of the day we had shaken hands on a deal for Aabar Investments to inject $280 million into Virgin Galactic.

  When it comes to deals like this, or any negotiations really, the key is to display passion, know-how and determination. Get to the point quickly, be persistent and consistent and don’t rely too heavily on prompts, statistics and certainly not PowerPoint slides. I went into the meeting with my notebook in my back pocket, armed with beautiful spaceship pictures, a lot of enthusiasm and belief in the project. Investors buy into people and ideas, not numbers alone.

  The deal was a game-changer. Until this point the company had been wholly owned and funded by Virgin Group, which put a strain on our wider operations. With so much riding on our space program, we had to control costs tightly elsewhere, manage our cash carefully and be very stringent with other investments. Patrick McCall and the Galactic team worked day and night ironing out the details, and did an unbelievable job to finalize the deal, with Aabar taking a 32-percent stake. It valued the business at over $1 billion. We also agreed to later explore the additional development of systems to launch small satellites at unprecedentedly low costs, reliably and flexibly, and Aabar were particularly keen on the idea of research labs in space. Their commitment—and, of course, their willingness to put their money where their mouth was—gave us all a massive confidence boost. It was a really important moment for the company financially, and also for me personally. I had been taking more of a backseat when it came to investment deals around the Group, and this was a timely reminder that I still had a few surprises up my sleeve. When I called the Virgin Galactic team, I was pleased to tell them, “There’s life in the old dog yet!”

  —

  It wasn’t only financial issues that we needed to overcome. As we prepared to unveil SpaceShipTwo in Mojave that December, the weather wanted to play its part in blowing us off course.

  We had decided to erect a huge tent in the desert and wait until nightfall to show off the spaceship under the stars. Governor Schwarzenegger of California and Governor Richardson of New Mexico, both enthusiastic supporters of the project, were on hand for the historic occasion. Arnie was his usual exuberant self, mixing with everyone. He was joined by many of our future astronauts; Holly; the Queen’s granddaughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie; and 800 journalists and VIPs.

  As darkness descended, the silent shape of SpaceShipTwo—now officially named Virgin Space Ship (VSS) Enterprise—was carried down the runway by her mothership. Lights flashed, music blasted and, bizarrely, snow fell all around. It was a very proud moment, but one that very quickly turned into a truly terrifying night. A storm had been gathering around us and gale force winds began whipping the great tent. But no one seemed to mind: the party was flowing, we were enjoying ourselves peering through telescopes stargazing and admiring the spaceship.

  Then somebody mentioned the word “hurricane.” Jackie McQuillan, our press guru, rushed up to me and said the fire department wanted us to abandon everything, get in the buses and leave immediately.

  “What a load of rubbish,” I said. “Look how much fun everyone’s having, there is no way we are going.”

  I walked over to the fire chief, ready to tell him to calm down and enjoy the party. But I could see by the thunderous look on his face that I should climb down quickly. He meant business.

  “If everyone hasn’t evacuated the area in the next few minutes,” he told me, “we could have a major disaster on our hands.”

  As everybody rushed out to some hastily scrambled buses, I looked back out of the window to see the whole 200-foot marquee take off! It was a close-run thing: the last person had barely got out in time before scaffolding went crashing onto the ground, sound systems were smashed and anything not tied down flew up into the sky.

  As the wind increased to 116 mph, locals told me there hadn’t been such a combination of high winds, rain and freezing temperatures in Mojave for over thirty years. I was worried the spaceship would disappear into the desert along with the tent, or at least be badly damaged, but the team got six buses and RVs to surround SpaceShipTwo, and then we very slowly edged it toward the hangar. Remarkably, the team managed to get her back indoors unscathed, and everyone was OK. I turned to the flushed, astonished faces on the bus.

  “If there was ever an example of how something can pick up your dreams and throw them up into thin air, this is it!”

  —

  In 2010 we saw SpaceShipTwo fly for the first time. Scaled Composites planned a “captive carry” test, where VSS Enterprise would fly attached to VMS Eve. Both spaceship and mothership looked magnificent against the deep blue Mojave backdrop and the test went perfectly.

  Away from the runway we secured one of the most important deals in the spaceline’s history: appointing our first chief executive. We pried George Whitesides, who was already a future Virgin Galactic astronaut, away from the prestigious role of chief of staff at NASA. Will Whitehorn had done a superb job as president, but George had the space industry know-how to move the company into a commercially operational business. What’s more, he was already deeply committed to our mission. George had met his wife, Loretta, at a UN space conference. When he heard about Virgin Galactic, he knew he had found the ultimate wedding present, and bought two tickets to enable them to be among the first astronauts to fly on SpaceShipTwo. They still intend to be the first couple to honeymoon in space. It was also important to have an American at the helm to navigate the business, policy, licensing and regulations that govern the space industry in the US. What’s more, George could help attract even more talent to the team as we looked to begin building and testing spaceships ourselves. It was a real challenge finding people skilled enough—and Virgin enough—to grow the Galactic team further.

  The Scaled test flights came thick and fast after George’s appointment; WhiteKnightTwo had now flown forty times, including four captive carry tests with the mothership and spaceship mated together. The fourth of these was SpaceShipTwo’s first crewed flight. This was swiftly followed by the first manned glide flight in commercial space history, on 10/10/10. The perfect score date turned out to be spot on. I looked on from the desert below as VMS Eve dropped VSS Enterprise into the clear sky from 45,000 feet. From that great height, Scaled’s test pilots glided her serenely down to the desert floor. It felt overwhelming and humbling watching such a powerful, beautiful vehicle glide so gracefully, touching back down to Earth as light as a feather.

  After watching our spaceship glide down to Earth so elegantly on a number of further occasions, I thought it was time my kids and I got in on the act. On a boiling hot day in New Mexico in October 2011, 800 guests watched us jump off the spectacular structure of Spaceport America. Unlike my last
leap off a building in Las Vegas, it all went smoothly.

  “I trust that will be the first of many safe landings!” I shouted as we touched down.

  Most of the future astronauts gathered with us in New Mexico were not celebrities; they were simply people who had always wanted to go to space and were fortunate enough to be able to afford it. We welcome people from all walks of life, people who will be among their countries’ first ever astronauts, families eager to share the experience of a lifetime together, individuals who have looked longingly at the stars since they were kids—anyone who shares our passion for space. We made a point of offering no discounts, whoever was asking, and have only ever offered one free ticket: Professor Stephen Hawking, who is one of my heroes as well as being a pioneer of scientific theory and probably the smartest person alive, happily accepted our invitation.

  “I wouldn’t mind dying in space, surrounded by the stars. It would be a good way to go!” he told me.

  We have not pursued people in the public eye to pay for a reservation, though, of course, some have done so and we’ve welcomed them into the community with everyone else. Every now and then one of them is keen to tell the world about their planned space adventures, and I’m always happy to help. This was the case when Ashton Kutcher became our 500th astronaut. I phoned Ashton to congratulate him.

  “I can’t wait to hear your own vision for crossing the final frontier and going to space with us,” I said.

  “And returning!” Ashton came back.

  Ashton signed up with his childhood friend, entrepreneur Shervin Pishevar, and told me they had shared a schoolboy dream of going to space. Now they would have the chance to go up together in the same spaceship. Not long afterward, Justin Bieber and his manager Scooter Braun signed up, too. I got an enormous number of tweets pleading with me to make Justin’s ticket one way! I thought they were quite harsh. Justin is a big talent, and with his success has come constant pressure to grow up in the public eye. Like any young lad, he’s made mistakes and acted up. But with a friend like Scooter, a wonderful mentor as well as a very astute businessman, I’m sure Justin will go on to do even greater things.

  —

  While Scaled continued testing the human spaceflight vehicles in Mojave, we were also working behind the scenes on another transformational space business: satellites.

  As plans developed for a privately funded satellite launcher system, I quickly realized this business had the potential to change the world. We had already partnered with NASA to provide opportunities for engineers, technologists and scientific researchers to fly technology payloads into space on SpaceShipTwo—the first time NASA had contracted with a commercial partner to provide flights into space on a suborbital spacecraft. With SpaceShipTwo developing well, some of the Virgin Galactic team turned their attention to LauncherOne, our new air-launched rocket specifically designed to deliver small satellites into orbit. We had been working on it in the background since 2008, but by 2012 our strategy was taking shape and I decided to share the idea at the Farnborough International Air Show.

  Standing beside a full-size replica of SpaceShipTwo, and surrounded by aviation experts and enthusiasts, I revealed a prototype for LauncherOne, a two-stage vehicle that would be launched from 50,000 feet by Virgin Galactic’s mothership WhiteKnightTwo, and which was capable of carrying up to 500 pounds to orbit for prices below $10 million. Because of the flexibility provided by air launch, infrastructure costs would be low and launch locations would be tailored to individual mission requirements and weather conditions. Virgin Galactic’s partner Aabar Investments was on board to help fund the development of frequent and dedicated launches at the world’s lowest prices. We even had our first LauncherOne customers, with four private companies, including an asteroid mining venture, putting down deposits and expressing intent to purchase several dozen launches.

  “LauncherOne is bringing the price of satellite launch into the realm of affordability for innovators everywhere, from start-ups and schools to established companies and national space agencies,” I told the audience. “It will be a critical new tool for the global research community, enabling us all to learn about our home planet more quickly and affordably.”

  There were lots of questions about whether developing LauncherOne meant we were taking our eye off the ball with human spaceflight, but we had recruited a dedicated team to design and build LauncherOne (and by 2017 the team had grown into a new company, Virgin Orbit).

  “I see the two as mutually beneficial,” I continued. “This way we can make the most of our resources and knowledge. Launching small satellites is an area ripe for enormous disruption, and we have the team, the technology and the expertise to shake up the whole industry and make it far more affordable.”

  While the trend, from mobile phones to chocolate bars, has been for things to get smaller and smaller, satellites have gone in the opposite direction. They are doing more amazing things, but getting more expensive. We wanted to reduce the size and thus cut the cost, opening up the market for many more people. We hoped the satellites could help enable projects from space-based solar power to more efficient food production and transportation; more effective disaster management to humanitarian assistance. Perhaps most importantly, we hoped to connect many of the billions of people who are still unconnected.

  As we moved into satellites, increasingly excitable pieces began to appear in the press more frequently. Many declared a new “space race” between me and some fellow entrepreneurs, namely Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, the Amazon and Blue Origin founder. “The Space Race is back in full swing—only this time with tech titans taking on the roles of aeronautic adversaries,” wrote Fortune, while CNBC described the industry as “a game of thrones among three billionaires.” There is certainly professional rivalry between us, but also enormous respect and a shared desire to shake up the space industry. When governments stopped investing and NASA funding was cut, space exploration largely dried up. Now a new generation of entrepreneurs is trying to bring innovation back to the stars.

  I’m proud that Virgin Galactic’s pioneering program has helped pave the way for more private companies to enter the market. Space is not out of reach anymore and we have really kick-started a multibillion-dollar industry, creating innumerable jobs and dreams in the process. Rather than Elon, Jeff and me being direct rivals, the reality is that we are all looking at the industry from slightly different angles and in different businesses. They intersect at the edges but are not on top of each other, and there is healthy competition to keep everybody going. In the human spaceflight field, we are just ahead, and in small satellites we are operating in various exciting niches. Elon, by contrast, is focused upon the goal of sending people to Mars, an admirable if extremely expensive goal.

  I knew there was certainly a market for this, from an experiment I dreamed up with Larry Page and Google in 2008. During a long night in the beach house on Necker, we devised a plan to launch a new joint venture called Virgle: The Adventure of Many Lifetimes. The company was launched to take humans to Mars, and was accepting candidates for one-way tickets to colonize the Red Planet. Thousands of people applied, and very few thought to consider the carefully chosen date of our launch: 1 April. I think getting to Mars will be possible in the future, but I also believe that Virgin Galactic, The Spaceship Company and Virgin Orbit’s approach of manufacturing vehicles of the future, offering human spaceflight and small satellite launches, is the best way to open space for the benefit of humanity and the Earth itself.

  —

  The countdown was finally on for SpaceShipTwo’s first powered flight. After completing another glide flight test with the rocket motor components installed, more successful feathered tests and nitrous vent tests, our breath was blown away by a “cold vent” test. This meant completing the profile of the fast-approaching milestone flight in the air, apart from actually igniting the rocket. Instead, oxidizer flowed
through the propulsion system and out through the nozzle at the rear of the vehicle. A spectacular trail spurted out from SpaceShipTwo, and I got my first taste of what SpaceShipTwo will look like as it takes us to space.

  A few weeks later, on 29 April 2013, I got more than a taste, when we were back out in Mojave for what would be Scaled’s first attempt to break the sound barrier with the spacecraft. I had the same butterflies in my stomach I felt before my ballooning adventures, that feeling where time slows right down to a crawl, even though you know it will soon speed up beyond comprehension. The atmosphere was electric as we made our way over to the hangar, abuzz with last-minute preparations.

  As the clock struck 7 a.m. we gathered on the tarmac and waved Scaled’s test pilot Mark Stucky and co-pilot Mike Alsbury into the SpaceShipTwo cockpit. Virgin Galactic’s chief pilot Dave Mackay was clambering into his seat in WhiteKnightTwo, assisted by Scaled co-pilot Clint Nichols and flight test engineer Brian Maisler. With little fanfare, SpaceShipTwo took off mated to WhiteKnightTwo. As they flew up to the release point, we waited 47,000 feet below, with a few quiet words being exchanged to ease the tension, all eyes fixed on the sky above.

  Forty-five minutes into the flight, WhiteKnightTwo dropped SpaceShipTwo to fly freely alone. Then, with a flash of fire, Mark triggered the rocket motor. Whoosh! The main oxidizer valve opened and the rocket ignited. I could see a magnificent plume of flames coming out of the back of the spaceship, and pointed in awe. SpaceShipTwo shot forward ferociously, rising upward in a rapid ascent to 55,000 feet. With the engine burning, the spaceship’s speed rose and rose, going supersonic with an audible pop, and achieving Mach 1.2.

  Before we could take this all in, it was over. The burn lasted the planned sixteen seconds, and the pilots began their descent back to Earth. I turned to Burt Rutan and gripped him in a tight embrace, before turning to my right to hug George and getting caught up in a mass of arms and grins. As the vehicles landed, less than an hour after they had taken off, my first feeling was one of overwhelming relief. But this was quickly succeeded by sheer joy, and I could barely get my words out. I was able to spend a brief moment congratulating the pilots, and simply told them how proud I was of them all.

 

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