"f86sabre" (f86sabre)
08/13/2014 at 18:44 • Filed to: Branson, virgin, galactic
12
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"f86sabre" (f86sabre)
08/13/2014 at 18:44 • Filed to: Branson, virgin, galactic | 12
| 5 |
Today was out biannual company leadership meeting and the guest speaker was Richard Branson. He basically did a QA with our CEO Richard Anderson. When I found out Branson was coming I started writing questions down. F-1, music, the airline and Virgin Galactic. I settled on a question about Galactic and his ten year plan. I was lucky enough to be one of three people out of 1500 in attendance to get to ask a question. His response was that he will be flying in Spaceship 2 by the end of the year, they should have reusable engines in a year or so, they are developing point to point systems and want to be able to go transatlantic and finally he wants to be orbital, have the ability to launch small telecom satiates as well as make pleasure flights and have a hotel in orbit "in the vicinity of the moon" within 10 years. It's a stretch, but you have to have dreams. It was cool to hear his story and was interesting to see him with our CEO who an interesting, but very different person.
Branson also went on a 5 minute tangent in the middle of the conversation with our CEO about his opinion that pot should be legal. That was pretty entertaining! He came off stage right by us at the end and gave me a "cheers" as he walked by.
As you can see I like to sit up front at these things. I always have. Sorry about the phone pics.
For Sweden
> f86sabre
08/13/2014 at 18:50 |
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One of those plans is far, far more ambitious than the rest; that plan being manned orbital flights.
It's like operating a Dash-8 to Jacksonville then saying, "Alright guys, next step is nonstop 747-8 flights from Atlanta to Tokyo."
Congrats on the partnership! Teach those rosbifs how to wrench properly.
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f86sabre
> For Sweden
08/13/2014 at 18:58 |
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I would love to see their articles in our shops. We can do the wrenching for them. Yeah, orbital is a big step. SS2 is only Mach 3. A long way to go beyond that.
davedave1111
> f86sabre
08/13/2014 at 19:09 |
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I met him once, a while ago, and he seemed to be a nice guy.
Walking through Holland Park one day, it started absolutely chucking it down by the bucket. The chap ahead of me opened up his enormous umbrella, then noticed me walking the same way, wearing just a t-shirt and getting soaked, and offered me some shelter. It was Branson. We made small talk for the next couple of hundred yards before we passed the Virgin offices and he said 'sorry, this is my stop' or some such. Then looked up at the sky, back at me, and said 'you'd better take this' and gave me the umbrella.
Wow, I just realised how banal that story is. But either he's a nice guy, or I'm a sucker for a free umbrella.
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f86sabre
> davedave1111
08/13/2014 at 19:17 |
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That is a great story. Sometimes the small things give you a good insight into a person.
William Byrd
> davedave1111
08/14/2014 at 10:24 |
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That's actually an excellent story!