Astronaut claims that Sir Richard Branson’s effort to take passengers into orbit is dead-end technology

Australian astronaut Andy Thomas stated that Sir Richard Branson’s effort to take passengers into orbit is dead-end and dangerous technology.

Last Week, Virgin Galactic, Sir Branson’s company, was celebrating after a successful rocket plane launch into space for the first time.

SpaceShipTwo, VSS Unity, attained an altitude of 82,682 metres after being released by its carrier plane at 13,106m. It reached a max speed of 2.9 times the speed of sound.

Dr. Thomas explained that he supported what Sir Richard was doing since he was “spinning off” the ability to launch satellites. But he was less pleased about the idea of taking tourists into orbit.

Dr. Thomas told reporters in Adelaide on Monday that it’’s true that he will fly to the edge of space, but he can’t stay there. He falls right back down. It’s just a high altitude aeroplane flight and a dangerous one at that.

Dr. Thomas added that as a technology to get humans into space, it’s a dead-end technology.

While he was with the NASA space program, Dr. Thomas flew into space four times and spent time on both the Mir and International Space Station.

After last week’s flight success, Sir Branson stated that his group would now move forward with its test program, saying that they have shown that Virgin Galactic really can open space to change the world for the better.

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