this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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Wasn't that sub also rife with cost-cutting measures to an ultimately unsafe degree? I also seem to recall stories of it's owner, prior to the incident, saying that it had not yet reached the point of being profitable. That doesn't mean that running a business off extreme tourism to rich people isn't viable of course, but I'm skeptical that it'll be all that big or successful of one.
That's the advantage of having multiple companies. You can use profits from one to prop up another struggling one. Musk is the master of that. But considering that Virgin also operated the failed Virgin Orbital and Virgin Hyperloop, I don't think Branson is a stranger to that either.
Meanwhile talking about safety, an earlier SpaceShipTwo prototype (VSS Enterprise) blew up spectacularly after the copilot unlocked the feather during the boost phase. It was supposed to be operated only during reentry. The feather had also activated without command after unlocking. Unless they got very serious after that accident, it's very likely that SS2 is just as foolhardy as the Titan sub.