Offbeat | Virgin Galactic gets back on track toward space tourism

The only thing interrupting the creosote and mesquite that makes up one of New Mexico’s most remote stretches of desert is a pristine runway where Virgin Galactic plans one day to launch the world’s first commercial space-line.
In the four years since its completion, however, the runway has seen little use. No constant roar of jet engines. No screeches from landing gear. Just promises, year after year, that it would shuttle paying passengers to the edges of Earth.
Virgin Galactic had proclaimed 2015 was finally going to be the year. That was until the company’s rocket-powered spacecraft broke apart over California’s Mojave Desert during a test flight last fall, killing one pilot and igniting speculation about the future of commercial space tourism and Spaceport America.
Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides said things are on track now and testing will take off again this year.
“I really think we’re turning the corner,” Whitesides said. “We’ve gone through one of the toughest things a company can go through and we’re still standing, and now we’re really moving forward with pace.”
He said the company and its investors aren’t backing down from the goal of making space accessible.
Virgin Galactic’s manufacturing crew is about two-thirds done with building a new spacecraft, and the operations team is ramping up for a test-flight program that will serve as one of the last major hurdles to getting off the ground.