Banking on $780 Million Deposits

Virgin Galactic announced that they are opening a spaceport in New Mexico with $225 million in state money. They are also reported by BBC Radio, Forbes, AP and others to have 38,000-40,000 people who have made a deposit. Ned Abel Smith of Virgin Galactic confirms that in fact that 39,000 is just the number of people on their mailing list, not the number of depositers. This is not the first media exaggeration of Virgin Galactic’s prospects. On the other hand, with Virgin Skill’s vendor for Virgin Galactic Quest, Fun Games selling to Liberty Media for $390 million with $13 million in revenue and no profit, maybe Virgin Galactic Quest will be worth more than Virgin Galactic. (BTW, Smith said that they are probably delaying launch of Virgin Galactic Quest until the new year, but it is “ready to go”. They don’t want to crowd their spaceport announcement.) Check out Virgin Galactic’s new logo.