Travelling in Space Becoming A Reality As Richard Branson's Firm Gets Commercial License Wining Over Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk

Now the dream of traveling in space is about to become a reality. That is, now people will be able to roam in space and enjoy the scenery there because Virgin Galactic, the spaceship company of billionaire Richard Branson, has got approval for takeoff.

Spacecraft company Virgin Galactic said on Friday that it has received commercial license from the US Aviation Safety Regulator (FAA) to take people into space. With this, Virgin Galactic has become the first company to get permission from the FAA to bring customers to space, winning over Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Elon Musk's SpaceX.

After this decision, the competition in the new and expensive space tourism sector will increase. 

Notably, Virgin Galactic still plans three additional test flights, one of which is expected to include Branson himself.

Virgin Galactic is targeting early 2022 to begin commercial service. The company has sold some 600 tickets priced at between $200,000 to $250,000.

Earlier this month, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced plans to fly into space in July with his company, Blue Origin. A mystery bidder spent $28 million to join Bezos and his brother in the July 20 launch.

Space Tourism - 3 Big Companies

After this green signal, a new sector of space tourism will be developed. The Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) approval for Branson comes at a time when the world's richest billionaire and Amazon owner Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin and Tesla boss Elon Musk's SpaceX are also in the race for space. Making a claim. The three companies active in space tourism were considered to be a tough competitor of each other, but in the meantime Virgin Galactic won.

Virgin Galactic's approach is different from SpaceX and Blue Origin as rockets of later companies launch vertically from the ground and Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo aircraft launches horizontally from the air.

Virgin Galactic has a sizeable waiting list of individuals hoping to travel to space, many of whom have paid in advance.

The Ticket Price

Virgin Galactic completed its first manned space flight from its new home port in New Mexico in May last month. The 6-passenger SpaceShipTwo Craft with its two pilots landed safely on the runway. At the same time, the company has said that it has more than 600 reservations for 90-minute flights. Which costs $250,000 per ticket. On the other hand, if we talk in Indian rupees, then the price will be around (Rs 1,85,55,425 or Rs. 1.85 crores)

India and Richard Branson's Nonprofit together Launch Global Cooling Technology Competition worth $3 Mn

Government of India's Ministry of science and technology, along with Mission Innovation and Richard Branson founded nonprofit Rocky Mountain Institute, has launched The Global Cooling Prize, a two-year-long international competition prized at US$3 million to find breakthrough innovations in cooling technology and in particularly residential cooling technology.

According to a report, released by Rocky Mountain Institute at the launch, growing economies like India, China, and other south-east Asian countries, people tend to make three major purchases first: a TV, a refrigerator, and an air conditioner (AC). The number of AC units are projected to grow massively from today's 1.2 billion worldwide to 4.5 billion by 2050, and according the report household AC units alone, could push global warming up half a degree by the end of the century.

Calling all RAC manufacturers, engineers, designers, entrepreneurs, or start-ups to apply and join the revolution to provide cooling to all -- without warming the planet -- The Global Cooling Prize competition is designed to provide an incentive to create higher-efficiency air conditioners and support startups in a field that’s currently dominated by a handful of major corporations.

A winning technology could prevent up to 100 gigatons of carbon emissions by 2050, and put the world on a pathway to mitigate up to 0.5˚C of global warming by 2100, according to the report.

To participate, companies/startups need to submit a solution that has five times less climate impact than a standard air conditioner, at no more than twice the cost, so it has a payback period of less than four years.

Over US$3 million will be awarded over the course of the two-year competition.

Up to 10 short-listed competing technologies will be awarded up to $200,000 each in intermediate prizes to support the design and prototype development of their innovative residential cooling technology designs. The winning technology will be awarded at least $1 million to support its incubation and early-stage commercialization.

The prize is supported by Department of Science and Technology (DST) under Government of India and Mission Innovation (MI) -- a global initiative of 22 countries and the European Union for clean energy innovation, and will be administered by Rocky Mountain Institute, Conservation X Labs, Alliance for an Energy Efficient Economy, and CEPT University. The Prize coalition will help identify the innovative cooling technology and support incubation, commercialization, and ultimately mass adoption around the world.

Besides India's DST, its partner organisations will also support the competition, and these include Ministry of Power, Bureau of Energy Efficiency, and Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, .

This global collaboration of India will drive and support incubation, commercialization, and ultimately mass adoption of the breakthrough technology, starting in India and expanding to other countries around the world.

"A technology developed through the Global Cooling Prize has the opportunity to capture a US$20 billion market and transform the global market for the better," said Iain Campbell, Senior Fellow, Rocky Mountain Institute.

It may also be recalled that in February this year, science & technology minister Harsh Vardhan had announced that the ministry is planning to launch India's first international incubator to promote innovation in the field of clean energy and provide opportunities to innovators across the MI countries to test their technologies in the local market.

According to a latest World Bank report, "Rising temperatures and changing monsoon rainfall patterns from climate change could cost India 2.8 percent of GDP and depress the living standards of nearly half the country's population by 2050."



Source - PRNewswire, Business Line

World's First Operational Hyperloop To Come Up On Mumbai-Pune Route, Courtesy Virgin

US-based Hyperloop One (called Virgin Hyperloop One since the end of 2017) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Maharashtra government to develop the world’s first operational hyperloop between Mumbai and Pune by 2025, reported Bloomberg Quint.

Backed by Richard Branson’s investee company Virgin, Hyperloop One will develop and construct a Hyperloop between Mumbai and Pune, reducing the travel time to cover the 140-km distance between Mumbai and Pune to 14-25 minutes, from 3-4 hours at present.



India may be the first country to have an operational Hyperloop, he said in an interaction with a select group of journalists on the sidelines of Magnetic Maharashtra Global Business Summit in Mumbai.

"Virgin Hyperloop One can help India become a global transportation pioneer and forge a new world-changing industry", said Branson.



"As our team’s studies have found, the Pune-Mumbai route could result in USD $55 billion (INR ₹350,000 crores) in socio-economic benefits, time savings, accident reduction and operational cost savings, over 30 years of operation", he added.

The concept of Hyperloop transportation was introduced and named by Elon Musk in August 2013, although he is not involved with Hyperloop One or any other company developing Hyperloop.

In May 2017, Hyperloop One became the only company in the world that has built a fully operational Hyperloop system, when it made a 500-meter Development Loop (DevLoop) in North Las Vegas, US.

In September 2017, Virgin Hyperloop One's biggest rival Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) also signed a MoU with the Andhra Pradesh Economic Development Board (APEDB), to facilitate the development of HTT’s Hyperloop transportation between Vijaywada and Amaravati, and potentially turning a trip of more than one hour into a 6 minute ride.

HTT was also reportedly in talks with five other Indian sates to begin trials for their high-speed transportation technology in the country. Later, the next month, HTT announced that it has began construction of the world’s first full scale Passenger Hyperloop Capsule, which will be delivered in early 2018. But now it seems like Virgin Hyperloop has won the race with India being its first testing ground.

To recall, a year back, one of the co-founders of Hyperloop One has launched a rival startup called Arrivo that also aims to develop technology based on the hyperloop architecture.

It is to be noted that, India too have local startup working on Hyperloop transportation technologies and its called Hyperloop India. Founded in 2015 by a small group of students from BITS Pilani, Team Hyperloop India is a unique multi-disciplinary multi-university think tank consisting of 60+ motivated student volunteers in the fields of engineering and business, interested in reinventing transportation in India.

In June last year, Hyperloop India was raising funds through crowdfunding platform Ketto. Later, the startup found its sponsor in Chennai's Hindustan University, who agreed to sponsor the Hyperloop India team, which will help them in realising their mission of participating in the final stage of Elon Musk’s SpaceX Hyperloop Competition Weekend to be held soon in Hawthorne, California.

Steve Wozniak, Richard Branson, And A Facebook VP Are Looking For The World's Best Startups

Three of the biggest names in the industry, Virgin's Richard Branson, Facebook's EMEA VP Nicola Mendelsohn and Apple's co-founder Steve Wozniak have taken upon themselves the task to find the best startups around the globe. The trio were recently announced as the esteemed judges for the Talent Unleashed Awards.

The Talent Unleashed Awards are focused on determining the best talents across five categories: best startup (social impact), best digital SME (tech innovation), best tech IPO/venture capital raise, most disruptive CIO/CTO, and best startup (tech innovation).

Startups and entrepreneurs from New Zealand, Europe, Asia, Australia, and the UK can take part in the Talent Unleashed Awards. In addition to the trio, a number of other industry experts will also be joining the judges panel and help in picking the most deserving choice for the five categories.



According to John Butterfield, EMEA CEO of Talent International, the talented organiser behind the Talent Unleashed Awards, the awards have been conceived with an aim to recognise and champion ideas that can have huge potential to give rise to a new transformational wave in the world of technology and also impact the community overall in a positive way.

In the last years edition, the awards received an excellent response of over 500 entries from a number of disruptive entrepreneurs and game-changing startups all around the world. Andiamo, last year's winner is currently gearing up for its winners trip to Necker Island with Sir Richard Branson sometime next month.

Andiamo is a 3D-prints custom orthotics, which aims to improve the quality of care that children with disabilities experience and also reduce the time that the care takes to reach them.

This year's global finale will take place in the magical city of Sydney in August and the winners will be rewarded with a trip to the Silicon Valley and some precious one-on-one time with the genius himself, Steve Wozniak.

Steve Wozniak, Richard Branson, And A Facebook VP Are Looking For The World's Best Startups

Three of the biggest names in the industry, Virgin's Richard Branson, Facebook's EMEA VP Nicola Mendelsohn and Apple's co-founder Steve Wozniak have taken upon themselves the task to find the best startups around the globe. The trio were recently announced as the esteemed judges for the Talent Unleashed Awards.

The Talent Unleashed Awards are focused on determining the best talents across five categories: best startup (social impact), best digital SME (tech innovation), best tech IPO/venture capital raise, most disruptive CIO/CTO, and best startup (tech innovation).

Startups and entrepreneurs from New Zealand, Europe, Asia, Australia, and the UK can take part in the Talent Unleashed Awards. In addition to the trio, a number of other industry experts will also be joining the judges panel and help in picking the most deserving choice for the five categories.



According to John Butterfield, EMEA CEO of Talent International, the talented organiser behind the Talent Unleashed Awards, the awards have been conceived with an aim to recognise and champion ideas that can have huge potential to give rise to a new transformational wave in the world of technology and also impact the community overall in a positive way.

In the last years edition, the awards received an excellent response of over 500 entries from a number of disruptive entrepreneurs and game-changing startups all around the world. Andiamo, last year's winner is currently gearing up for its winners trip to Necker Island with Sir Richard Branson sometime next month.

Andiamo is a 3D-prints custom orthotics, which aims to improve the quality of care that children with disabilities experience and also reduce the time that the care takes to reach them.

This year's global finale will take place in the magical city of Sydney in August and the winners will be rewarded with a trip to the Silicon Valley and some precious one-on-one time with the genius himself, Steve Wozniak.