I’ll trade options on that stock, but I wouldn’t buy and hold.
5 thoughts on “Virgin Galactic’s Problems”
VG has never looked like a good investment but creative destruction and all that.
You’d ave thought that at this point any launch cadence at all would be do or die, that upgrades had better wait until there was signs of something other than abject failure. I imagine the “investigation” is the real road block. I doubt they’d hold up at this point unless they were worried about something like a wing falling off. A really outstanding instance of corporate transparency and accountability.
Both VG and New Shepard are going to come under tremendous price competition pressure if Musk can make his Starship price target estimates. But their development is sunk cost and they might be able to make enough to ay operating costs. VG might have a second life, however, if one or more medium-level powers with little organic space capabilities start looking at it as a high-altitude quick response reconnaissance platform, that can fly in national airspace just short of the border with a threatening neighbor. Look for a threatened country with good relations with the US lobbying to OK export permits for SS2. Hmm; threatened country with good relations with the US, and maybe even a powerful domestic lobby of sympathizers. Any candidates?
Both Branson and Bezos are hobbyists, Branson more so.
It’s been pretty clear for a long while that VG is in a dead end where their hardware just doesn’t work well enough to make the tourism business work and there isn’t any path beyond that.
Blue Origin was supposed to be using tourism to fund hardware development. If they had achieved their present state 8-10 years ago, they’d be relevant. Now they only matter if you need to buy an engine and it absolutely can’t be SpaceX, and cost and schedule are no object. Maybe, congress mandating them as a lunar lander supplier will save them That has always worked so well, it’ll go with SLS.
VG has never looked like a good investment but creative destruction and all that.
You’d ave thought that at this point any launch cadence at all would be do or die, that upgrades had better wait until there was signs of something other than abject failure. I imagine the “investigation” is the real road block. I doubt they’d hold up at this point unless they were worried about something like a wing falling off. A really outstanding instance of corporate transparency and accountability.
Both VG and New Shepard are going to come under tremendous price competition pressure if Musk can make his Starship price target estimates. But their development is sunk cost and they might be able to make enough to ay operating costs. VG might have a second life, however, if one or more medium-level powers with little organic space capabilities start looking at it as a high-altitude quick response reconnaissance platform, that can fly in national airspace just short of the border with a threatening neighbor. Look for a threatened country with good relations with the US lobbying to OK export permits for SS2. Hmm; threatened country with good relations with the US, and maybe even a powerful domestic lobby of sympathizers. Any candidates?
Both Branson and Bezos are hobbyists, Branson more so.
It’s been pretty clear for a long while that VG is in a dead end where their hardware just doesn’t work well enough to make the tourism business work and there isn’t any path beyond that.
Blue Origin was supposed to be using tourism to fund hardware development. If they had achieved their present state 8-10 years ago, they’d be relevant. Now they only matter if you need to buy an engine and it absolutely can’t be SpaceX, and cost and schedule are no object. Maybe, congress mandating them as a lunar lander supplier will save them That has always worked so well, it’ll go with SLS.