Virgin Galactic Chief Blasts Assertions in New Branson Biography

摘要

The top executive at subor-bital space tourism outfit Virgin Galactic said an author's claims that the company faces intractable technical and legal obstacles in its quest to fly paying passengers to the edge of space starting this year are "tenuous and removed from reality." The claims were made by Tom Bower in his recently published biography of Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson and in an interview published Jan. 26 by the Sunday Times newspaper of London. George Whitesides, aformer NASA chief of staff who is now chief executive ofVirgin Galactic, refuted the claims in a Jan. 28 email to SpaceNews.