ANA Holdings Inc. has invested in PD Aerospace Ltd., a Japanese company developing a craft to take people into space as early as 2023 that aims to rival Richard Branson¡¯s Virgin Galactic Ltd.
The airline, Japan¡¯s largest by sales, invested ?20.4 million ($179,000) into PD Aerospace in October, while H.I.S. Co., the nation¡¯s largest publicly listed travel agent by sales, invested ?30 million at the same time, the companies said in a joint statement with PD Aerospace Thursday.
PD Aerospace, founded in 2007, is vying with billionaire Branson¡¯s commercial space company Virgin Galactic and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos¡¯s Blue Origin to ferry individuals to the edge of space in reusable craft. The Japanese company is first developing a smaller unmanned craft and will then build a ship capable of carrying as many as eight people 100 kilometers above the Earth.
¡°We need bigger investments in the future,¡± PD Aerospace President Shuji Ogawa told reporters in Tokyo. Creating a space craft is ¡°taking longer than planned because we didn¡¯t have the funds,¡± he said.
The company is aiming to start commercial flights with a manned craft in December 2023, it said in the statement. Its website listed 2020 as the targeted year.
Virgin Galactic¡¯s program had ran into difficulty, with SpaceShipTwo breaking up in mid-air in 2014, while Bezos¡¯s offering has successfully fired and landed its craft.
Virgin Galactic said earlier this year that it had almost 700 bookings at $250,000 a ticket. The cost could fall to less than $100,000 if other entrepreneurs can successfully create competing flight programs, stimulating demand and pushing down prices.
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