In any one conversation Larry will come up with five or six incredible ideas. If it was anybody else I would make my excuses and get up and leave after the first. But because it is Larry I sit and listen, take it in, absorb and try to find the substance. One of his ideas I love is using giant kites to generate electricity. If it works it would be fantastic. The idea of the world being full of beautiful, colorful kites generating energy is inspirational as well as practical.
I’m sure that was a spinoff from his love of kiting and our trips around the BVI. While Larry was kiting on his wedding day, I got talking to his university lecturer on the beach. He told me how Larry came to him at the end of the course and told him: “I’ve got these three ideas, which should I pursue?” The professor thought “that Google thing” sounded the best—but believed all three would have been successful. I find it curious how Larry and his co-founder Sergey Brin get criticized now for not sticking to their core products and increasingly spending time and money in experimental ventures. What they basically say to the market place is: “If we don’t do it, who will?” I love that attitude—hopefully it is something that has rubbed off on Larry from our nights on Necker! He certainly has respect for the Virgin brand. We were onstage in front of a large audience of tech experts in San Francisco when Larry said: “Richard has got an incredible three hundred companies and we’ve only got one.” “I’ll swap,” I replied. “Quick as a flash!”
While the Virgin brand punches massively above its weight, we are still small compared to Google or Facebook. This means we can’t do too many moonshot ideas at the same time. The space industry is our moonshot at the moment—anything more than that would potentially bankrupt us. For example, in 2011 we launched a company, Virgin Oceanic, to explore the bottom of the ocean. We built a submarine and I planned to dive nearly 11,000 meters down to the Mariana Trench, carrying out several test dives in the craft. It was tremendously exciting, but fraught with technical difficulties in developing a submarine that could withstand the pressures of the deepest parts of the ocean. We had to decide: could we afford the huge expense of this moonshot at the same time as our space program? Or should we move these funds into ocean conservation, creating Ocean Unite and spending my time as an Ocean Elder? We decided upon the latter. Sometimes it is necessary to pivot a business into a new idea, and wait for another opportunity.
—
In June 2015, I was at the Royal Society in London, a fitting venue as the UK’s national science academy, to share our latest progress on OneWeb and the world’s biggest ever satellite constellation. First formed way back in 1660, the society has promoted and celebrated scientific achievement ever since. In the grandeur of its Grade-I listed, Carlton House Terrace headquarters, I felt in the right place to let the world know about our exciting plans.
Virgin Galactic, I announced, had signed a contract with OneWeb to serve as one of its inaugural satellite launch providers. We agreed to perform an initial series of satellite launches for OneWeb, making the deal at that point the largest commercial procurement of launches ever. These satellites, creating an unprecedented global communications system dwarfing any previous commercial network in the skies by a factor of ten, could bring connectivity to millions of people.
“It’s a project with purpose with the power to change the world,” I told the assembled guests. “By connecting remote areas, we can raise living standards and prosperity in some of the poorest regions.”
I left it to OneWeb’s Greg Wyler to make the launch date predictions: “The dream of fully bridging the digital divide is on track to be a reality in 2019.”
The scale of the deal, which will enable affordable broadband access around the world, including in areas currently unserved or underserved by terrestrial providers, meant that Virgin Galactic could expand further, too. Just as the human spaceflight project was all being done in-house, we wanted to build every aspect of our rocket launcher ourselves. We opened the perfect spot in February 2015: a 150,000-square-foot facility at Long Beach airport. We moved 120 of our engineers and technicians there, and they immediately got to work. The way we had pivoted the business was fairly typical of Virgin ventures—we have to be nimble, open to opportunities and ready for change.
Behind the scenes, I was thinking about how we could increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our satellites program further. One big issue we had was that our mothership, WhiteKnightTwo, would be needed to transport both our human spaceflight program and our satellite program. While it is certainly capable, this is a lot of exertion for one aircraft. Plans to build further motherships were underway, but this would take a long time and cost a great deal, so we needed to think creatively.
I thought back to watching NASA’s Shuttle Carrier Aircraft in action in the 1970s. They were two modified Boeing 747 jetliners, which were originally manufactured for commercial use before being heavily altered to ferry space shuttle orbiters. I remember first seeing the shuttle attached to the top of the 747 and thinking how peculiar it looked, then marveling as they flew seamlessly as one. Could the same concept be applied for our spaceship? As the owner of three airlines, I had a good idea where we could source some secondhand 747s!
I got my notebook out and drew some little sketches of how this could work, before taking the idea to the Virgin Galactic team to drill down into the details. While putting our spaceship on top of the 747 didn’t look workable right now (though it may in the future), we had another idea for our satellites. Perhaps we could modify the plane to attach LauncherOne to the wing? If the giant rocket could have enough clearance from the ground, it would free up WhiteKnightTwo, our mothership, to focus solely on commercial spaceflights.
Over at Virgin Atlantic, we were beginning to roll out our stunning new Dreamliners, so some of the older 747s were due to go out of commercial service. It just so happened that we had a plane that fitted the bill, with a perfect name: Cosmic Girl. Our engineers checked on the feasibility of attaching LauncherOne to its wing and gave it the go-ahead.
On 3 December, I traveled down to Texas to welcome Cosmic Girl to Virgin Galactic’s fleet. Boeing was also in Texas, already looking into the modification requirements for Cosmic Girl, and I asked their team leader a question we had been considering for a while.
“Do you think it would be possible for SpaceShipTwo to be launched from the top of a 747?”
“Based upon the success of the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, I would say it is possible, with a lot of modification,” he said.
We started throwing around other ideas. Might it be possible to intercept a falling rocket fitted with a parachute, using a helicopter with a giant hook? If it worked, we could retrieve and reuse expensive equipment. For every twenty questions like this, there may be one that turns into a gem of an idea. It’s important to look simplistically at everything—even the most complex problems could have answers staring you straight in the face. This attitude had also led to a small number of Virgin Galactic staff spending time pondering the question of point-to-point travel. This is the idea of hypersonic transportation from one place to another distant place via space. There is potential to fly from the US to Australia in two hours using this method and there’s no reason why point-to-point travel can’t be achieved (even if everyone might not enjoy the g-forces!). If I didn’t have incentive enough, I was in Peru in April 2013 having breakfast outside our hotel when a young couple approached us. The man immediately asked:
“Is it true you could fly across the world in a couple of hours?”
“Well, not yet—but I believe we will one day.”
“How soon?”
“I’m not sure yet—but we’re working on it. Why?”
“Well . . .” He looked across at his girlfriend standing next to him, and she smiled. “I live here in Lima,” she said. “But he lives in Abu Dhabi. It takes so long to get to each other.”
“I see. Virgin Galactic are already working real
ly hard on the problem. Now we’ve got an extra reason to make it happen!”
I think about technology intuitively. Piloting hot-air balloons around the world gave me a good practical understanding of aviation concepts, and I’ve picked up a lot from running our airlines. While I don’t get involved in the nuts and bolts, or specifics like the inner workings of a rocket motor, it doesn’t take me long to understand key structures and concepts. George is no longer surprised when I call him up three months after he has shown me a certain aspect of a fuel tank, and ask him how it is progressing. I’m not stuck in the weeds, and I trust that we have the world’s best technical expert working on it, but I like to think I can add value by thinking about problems in a completely different way from the professionals.
As time ticked on from the OneWeb deal and development of our new spaceship and modification of Cosmic Girl continued, I thought about how we could keep momentum up. I’m a big believer in creating panic early. Too many leaders wait until deadlines are looming or a crisis is in full flow before injecting urgency into their team. By then it’s too late. I like to shake things up in my teams and keep people motivated by pushing them to think as if it’s a crisis, when everything is running on schedule. This way, innovations can be sparked, and future crises can be averted. Pondering this, I sent a note to the Virgin Galactic and Virgin Group management teams, trying to squeeze a little more momentum out.
Dear Galactic team,
Being dyslexic, I’ve never been one for spreadsheets. I need to simplify everything. It’s how I’ve run companies for 50 years. So forgive the simplistic approach I’ve taken below, but I do think it’s well worth a read [I then listed out costs based on items such as satellite amounts, labor, tanks, avionics, operations and propulsion.] We need to urgently look into how we can reduce costs in the short term. For instance, can we bring any of the development in-house? Can we cut down other costs?
What if we decided to ramp up production quicker? What would that do to costs and profitability?
The benefits of speeding things up over the next three years are huge and all of this can be done in our Long Beach facility by utilizing it fully. If no one can find fundamental flaws in these figures, we should have a serious discussion. It will mean upfront costs but on the face of it this would be money well spent. I’d like to arrange a phone call for tomorrow to have what I suspect will be a healthy debate on this! Obviously if I’m correct about the above this would be completely transformational, so let’s put our thinking caps on and try to make something happen. Whatever else, we must move rapidly from TODAY.
We had a very productive phone call and the team began looking into the feasibility of making some of the changes. It isn’t just big amounts and major deals I use this logic on; I try to simplify everything and apply this to every aspect of my life, however small or big. This means paying attention to detail. A good entrepreneur signs every check personally, say, every quarter. Doing so, they will pick up large and small discrepancies. We have used the same taxi firm in Miami for years. In checking the bill recently it was clear we were being ripped off. We called up and asked them to justify their new prices—they immediately apologized and cut their rates by 50 percent. Then there are bigger amounts. Each year our banks required us to undertake a valuation exercise on some Virgin Group assets, apparently as part of their internal policies but for no clear reason, taking substantial time and costing us over $100,000 a year. One call and they agreed that they didn’t actual need this. For every dollar you save today, the cumulative effect is enormous. Too often people only look into these details when times are tight and they are losing money. It is much easier to remove unnecessary over-complications and costs when business is doing well, keeping your company lean and mean.
—
In February 2016, I looked around the table at the Mariah Inn and saw four generations of my family surrounding me: Mum had flown out to the desert, along with Joan, Sam, Bellie and their first child—my granddaughter Eva-Deia (more about her soon!). The mood was celebratory: it was Eva-Deia’s first birthday. But we were also in Mojave for another special occasion of a different sort: the unveiling of Virgin Galactic’s new spaceship.
As we drove around the corner to FAITH, the hangar where the beautiful new SpaceShipTwo was waiting behind the scenes, I was eager for a sneak peek. As I popped my head into the spaceship, I was greeted with my first surprise on a day of surprises: the actor Harrison Ford! Dave Mackay was alongside him in the cockpit and only too happy to let Han Solo take the driver’s seat!
“How does it compare to the Millennium Falcon?” I asked.
“It’s real life, it’s fantastic,” he said.
We shook hands and I thanked him for coming. Later he told me all about his plane crash onto a golf course and how he had survived. It sounded hairy.
“You’ve had more close calls than me!” I told him.
“I don’t know about that.”
“Well, you’re welcome back here any time, and we’ll get you to space one day.”
I was fascinated to see how this great actor, renowned for his Star Wars role, was eager to fly into space. David Bowie, who had sadly died the month before, was another who inspired us all to look to the cosmos with wonder through songs like “Starman” and “Life on Mars.” I was very fortunate to cross paths with David over the years (we did eventually sign him to Virgin Records) and he was truly unique. As a young man entranced by the moon landing in 1969, his breakthrough song “Space Oddity” had a big impact upon me. It was interesting to hear in The Last Five Years documentary that he didn’t want to go to space himself: “It’s an interior dialog that you manifest physically,” he said. “It’s my little inner space, isn’t it? Writ large. I wouldn’t dream of getting on a spaceship—it would scare the shit out of me. I have absolutely no interest or ambition to go into space whatsoever. I’m scared going down the end of the garden.”
I empathized with his attitude of seeing space as a metaphor for internal exploration and expanding his state of mind. Space, as a symbol, is important to my own psyche, and how I see life as one wonderful, upward journey. But, unlike David, I was also very serious about physically visiting space. Rather than scary, I found the prospect exhilarating.
I rejoined my family in a neighboring hangar, where they had met the assembled future astronauts and Virgin Galactic team for lunch. There was an atmosphere of impatience and excitement as we waited for the big reveal. “What does it look like?” was the question on everybody’s lips.
“You’ll have to wait and see,” I teased.
Once everyone was inside FAITH, we ramped up the tension with a series of testimonials from Virgin Galactic’s leaders, stressing the amazing teamwork that had gone into this journey. The spaceship’s name, from our initial nickname “Hope,” had evolved to Virgin SpaceShip Unity. There was no other word to illustrate the togetherness that had defined the long months between the tragic accident of 31 October 2014 and this moment on 19 February 2016.
I lingered behind a curtain, atop a Land Rover in front of the spaceship, with the proud team of engineers that built her behind me. Malala Yousafzai shared some inspirational words about the role of women in science, and in particular in building VSS Unity. Her voice echoed around the hangar: “My superpower is to speak for girls in a voice so loud that the whole world will listen. This spacecraft is such a great work, and it’s a way that you are inspiring young people in this whole world to explore more, to go further and to have no boundaries.”
While I was itching to show off the spaceship, we had one more surprise: one of the most influential people in history and the only person with a free Virgin Galactic ticket to space, Professor Stephen Hawking. The hangar went pitch-black and silent, before the iconic sound of Professor Hawking’s computerized voice began speaking.
“A man with the vision and persistence to open up spaceflight for ordinary, Earth-bound cit
izens, Richard Branson made it his mission to make spaceflight a reality for those intrepid enough to venture beyond the boundaries of the Earth’s atmosphere. I have had ALS for over fifty years now and while I have no fear of adventure, others do not always take the same view. If I am able to go—and if Richard will still take me—I would be very proud to fly on this spaceship.” Stephen’s piercing blue eye was slowly beamed into the room from the UK—it was incredibly powerful. “Space exploration has already been a great unifier—we seem able to cooperate between nations in space in a way we can only envy on Earth. We are entering a new space age and I hope this will help to create a new unity.”
Taking my cue, the curtain dropped and I arrived with VSS Unity to a stream of applause. Eyes widened at the striking new livery. Echoing what Stephen Hawking had said, I took the microphone: “Together, we can make space accessible in a way that has only been dreamed of before now, and by doing so can bring positive change to life on Earth. Our beautiful new spaceship, with its stunning silver and white livery, is the embodiment of that goal and will provide us with an unprecedented body of experience, which will in turn lay the foundations for Virgin Galactic’s future. Her creation is also great testament to what can be achieved, when true teamwork, great skill and deep pride are combined with a common purpose.”
I wasn’t going to let the occasion pass without marking Eva-Deia’s big day in unique fashion, though. First, we smashed a baby bottle against the spaceship, the milk splashing all over my face. Next, I cajoled Sarah Brightman, one of our future astronauts, into kindly singing a touching happy birthday to my granddaughter. Then one of the most moving moments of the event took place, as Bellie shared some more of Professor Hawking’s fitting wisdom on unity: “When we see the Earth from space we see ourselves as a whole. We see the unity, but not the divisions. One planet, one human race. We are here together and we need to live together with tolerance and respect.”
Finding My Virginity: The New Autobiography Page 38