Virgin Galactic just filed to sell about $500 million in shares after the company’s first rocket-powered test flight. Founder Richard Branson‘s new act just won the firm praise from Wall Street as a ‘marketing coup’.
The new age of space begins
“Welcome to the dawn of a new space age,” said Branson at the Spaceport America complex in New Mexico. The hour-long mission of over 50 miles above the planet was a grand success to Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. The company also plans to offer space tourism trips to the general public in a year. However, the company’s shares took a hit after the disclosure of a potential sale of shares on Monday. (Valium)
Richard Branson’s achievement has been a humungous marketing coup for the firm. Moreover, it is now impossible fr the general public to ignore Virgin galactic. “The challenge now will be for the company to maintain the momentum and establish a flight plan in 2022 that can demonstrate a repeatable and increasing commercial launch cadence,” said Ken Herbert. Herbert is an analyst at Canaccord Genuity.
However, the company’s shares plunged 13 percent to $45.90 and then slid to 15 percent. Virgin’s shares are volatile and have seesawed in the past few weeks. Moreover, it doubled this year as the company brought the test-flight program to track.
Virgin Galactic and new beginnings
The firm is all set to start working through a list of 600 confirmed customers from 2022 onwards. They also assured that ticket sales will resume after the summer test flights. However, according to the company’s executives, the fares might be higher than the previous price of $250,000 per seat. Right now, space travel and space tourism are accessible to a select slice of the ultra-rich.
As the Unity spaceflight reached its peak, Branson and the crew experienced the beauty of weightlessness for a few minutes. “So I looked out the window and the view is just stunning. It’s very Zen; it’s very kind of peaceful up there as well,” said Colin Bennett, the operations engineer. “I’m never going to be able to do it justice. It’s indescribably beautiful,” added Branson.
