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27th July 2005<br /><br />Today at the EAA Oshkosh air show in Wisconsin, Sir Richard Branson and Burt Rutan announced their signing of an agreement to form The Spaceship Company — jointly owned by Virgin and Scaled.<br /><br />This new aerospace production company will manufacture launch aircraft, spaceships and support equipment and market them to spaceline operators, including the launch customer, Virgin Galactic.<br /><br />Virgin Galactic has placed orders for five spaceships and two launch aircraft with options on further systems, thus securing the exclusive use of the systems for the initial 18 months of commercial passenger operations.<br /><br />The Spaceship Company plan to make spaceflight affordable for the masses and to demonstrate the commercial viability of manned space exploration.<br /><br />Burt Rutan commented “I am very excited to have agreed terms on which we can now move forward to develop the world’s first commercial, passenger-carrying spaceships. Richard and I share a vision that commercially-viable and safe space tourism will provide the foundation for the human colonisation of space. I’m looking forward to working together with Richard on this next exciting phase.”<br /><br />Sir Richard added “I couldn’t be more delighted to announce the formation of this joint venture at the biggest private aviation event in the world. I never dreamed that one day I would form with Burt, the company which will build the world’s first commercial passenger spacecraft.”<br /><br /> <br />OSHKOSH, Wis. --July 27, 2005-- Today, Sir Richard Branson (Founder, Virgin Group of Companies) and Burt Rutan (President, Scaled Composites) announced their signing of an agreement to form a new aerospace production company to build a fleet of commercial sub-orbital spaceships and launch aircraft. The new company will own the designs of the new SpaceShipTwo (SS2) and White Knight Two (WK2) launch systems that are now in development at Scaled Composites. The SS2/WK2 system will use the '