Branson wants to launch space flight

Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic is seeking government support to launch commercial space flights in Britain. Will Whitehorn, president of

Virgin Galactic, has held talks with Lord Drayson, the science minister, in the past few weeks about establishing an operation at the Lossiemouth RAF airbase in Scotland. Virgin wants the government to amend the 1986 Outer Space Act to allow it to launch space flights here. The legislation makes it difficult to run the service in Britain. The plan has the support of Andy Green, chief executive of the software giant Logica, who is chairing the Space Innovation and Growth Team, which is due to report to Drayson in January on ways to boost the sector in Britain. Virgin estimates that bringing Virgin Galactic to Britain could create 1,500 to 2,000 jobs. Green believes it would also spur greater interest in the fast-growing space industry, which supports 68,000 jobs in the UK. Scientists have warned that the miserable northern weather could preventVirgin's plans to launch its spacecraft from Scotland. RAF Lossiemouth suffers more than two-thirds cloud cover for nearly two-thirds of the time. Whitehorn said it was possible to launch Virgin Galactic's service despite the poor weather because the spacecraft is launched from a mothership that carries it up to 50,000ft. Virgin Galactic will charge $200,000 a head for a two-hour space flight. The first services will operate from Spaceport America in New Mexico and the first flights outside America are likely to be from a base in Sweden.Virgin's interest has emerged just days after Logica's Green wrote to Drayson calling for the creation of a UK space agency and national space programme. The space sector has grown 9% a year over the past decade — more than three times faster than the economy as a whole.

POSTED BY: PALLAVI SINGH

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