The chief executive of Richard Branson’s commercial space travel venture Virgin Galactic dismissed comparisons between his company and OceanGate Expeditions, the firm behind the doomed Titan submersible.
Michael Colglazier said any attempt to link the Titan disaster with Virgin Galactic is “simply an apples and oranges comparison.”
“Virgin Galactic ships are built, they’re designed, they’re maintained in a way that leverages decades of experience in the aerospace industry,” Colglazier told CNBC after his company successfully completed its first-ever commercial mission to the edge of the earth’s stratosphere on Thursday.
He also noted commercial space travel is tightly regulated by the federal government.
Colglazier told CNBC that the Federal Aviation Administration “sits with us in Mission Control at every flight.”
“The bedrock foundation of safety that this entire company is built around is not all of our industry, especially Virgin Galactic is going to build this and fly when we’re safe,” the CEO said.
“And we do the data analysis. We did the hard engineering work, we maintain it the right way.”
Virgin Galactic’s 90-minute commercial space flight went off without a hitch on Thursday — calming many on social media who were concerned by another extreme expedition so soon after the implosion of the Titan submersible killed all five aboard.
The hour-and-a-half flight, which was live-streamed by the company, carried two Italian air force officers an engineer with Italy’s National Research Council, and two Virgin Galactic pilots.
The researchers conducted a series of microgravity experiments during their few minutes of weightless.
Virgin Galactic will now begin offering monthly flights next month, according to the company, which has a backlog of passengers that have been waiting years to soar to the edge of space.
Meanwhile, investigators continue to probe the site of the Titan sub implosion hundreds of miles off the cost of Newfoundland.
The Titan disaster appears to have been preventable in light of past comments by OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush pooh-poohing the need to maintain strict safety regulations.
“You know, there’s a limit,” Rush, who died alongside four other passengers who paid $250,000 each to explore the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, was quoted as saying.
“You know, at some point, safety just is pure waste. I mean, if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed.”
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