Our mission is to transform access to space for the benefit of life on Earth. To achieve that, more than 300 talented men and women have moved their lives and families to the Mojave desert in California to manufacture and operate our spaceships. Out there they are starting something more significant than any of us can understand right now.
Our experience in building and operating winged space vehicles will give us an advantage in being able to push long-haul commercial aviation above the atmosphere. In due course we will drastically reduce journey times and the environmental impact of moving people around the planet, delivering a transcontinental capability for our vehicles and leapfrogging the long-awaited supersonic successors to Concorde.
From the Mojave to the Moon, Mars and Beyond The Economist
A bungled report into the failure of a Mars lander The Economist
If a neat line were ever to be drawn under the failure of Beagle 2, a British spacecraft, to arrive safely on Mars on Christmas Day 2003, an independent and transparent investigation was needed. By its own admission, then, the European Space Agency (ESA) has failed to deliver. Six of the nine people who put the report together are existing or past ESA staff members. And, except for a list of recommendations, the report is to remain secret
Not so lonely planet The Economist
The first humans to land on Mars will be farther flung than any explorers in history. But their destination will already be familiar to them, thanks to a long line of robots. Earth
NASA does some fancy financial footwork to deal with a budget crisis The Economist
Five billion dollars is a lot of money. A line of dollar bills five billion long would reach to the moon and back. Finding that you have a $5 billion budget shortfall
Runners-up in the space race The Economist
The global space club grows by the day. How do the aims and achievements of the world
Martian invasion? Not yet The Economist
WHEN he was president, George Bush senior said he wanted America to put people on Mars by 2019, the 50th anniversary of the first moonwalk. His son, too, has great plans for the planet. Although other areas of physical science are threatened with budget cuts, space-exploration seems still to be a favoured child. There are, nevertheless, many questions to address before NASA, America
Martian chronicles The Economist
The more scientists know about the place, the less they understand it. Will this weekend
A waste of space The Economist
The International Space Station has been touted as a stepping stone on the way to Mars, an exemplar of international co-operation in space, and an orbiting research laboratory. Sadly, the International Space Station is none of these things. Sixteen years after Ronald Reagan set NASA, America
The fans of Mars The Economist
A growing movement hopes to capitalise on public interest in the red planet to pay for research
Reaching for the Martian sky The Economist
Early in the 21st century, unmanned flying machines could take to the air on Mars