Branson's 'Space' Flight Cracked Open A New Market

There was a huge debate about whether the billionaire owner of Virgin Galactic - Richard Branson - actually went into space or not, but what he did achieve was a massive spectacle and the opening up of a whole new market.?

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Branson's business model has been "no core competence" but building on a brand promise by finding unique riches across diverse markets. The 4 minutes of weightless existence he had aboard VSS Unity at $2,50,000 per seat has created a demand for more experiences as such. Experts later claimed that it wasn't a space flight at all as Branson reached just 85 km high, so it wasn't a space flight but just a high-altitude one. Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is claiming to now prepare to cross the Karman Line, beyond which it is airless. Science however states that space is 15 km beyond that.?

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Virgin's suborbital flight has given the much-desired push to space tourism from rich would-be space - farers. Other billionaires are jumping on the bandwagon before it picks speed - Bezos had declared that he would reach space by 20th July, and then his firm Blue Origin would launch a similar space tourism service.

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This race commenced way back when a $10 million prize was set up, which was named X prize, and was later changed to Ansari X Prize in 2004. It was the first non - government firm to send humans into space using a reusable rocket, twice, in 14 days. The goal was to push the spirit of exploration and get investments in a challenging field. Potential spin-offs would give other humans tremendous benefits.?

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Many technologies used today have come from grand new projects launched earlier. Now huge private companies are entering what was a state-dominated sector so far. Perhaps such advances lie in store that we haven't yet imagined.?

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Soon, three space firms are going to compete very hard with each other. The potential benefits for humans will hopefully be immense.?

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The desire of mankind to explore new vistas, and the potential market size for space tourism, are likely going to be a success story soon.

-Aindri Abhishek Singh

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