Branson’s Flight Validates the Space SPACs That Virgin Started
Virgin Galactic pioneered the use of a controversial financial vehicle fueling the private space industry.
Billionaire Branson Urges Spaceship Building for Future Astronauts
For years, executives at Virgin Galactic have said that a key step along the way to offering passenger flights into space was to send the company’s founder, 70-year-old Richard Branson, on his own test flight. On Sunday, Branson flew to the edge of space in Virgin’s VSS Unity space plane, a trip that was conspicuously timed to take place less than two weeks before Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos is slated to make his own voyage.
Branson and Bezos see their flights as the beginning of a new stage in commercial space travel. But Virgin Galactic has been a pioneer for the space industry in other ways, too. In 2019 the company went public by merging with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, whose shares were already trading on public markets. It was an early use of a then-obscure financial tool that has since become a popular way for risky companies to access public-market investors before they’d realistically be able to pull off a traditional initial public offering.