Is Richard Branson’s space tourism dream really about ‘pushing the boundaries of human endeavour’, or is it all about his legacy?

EVERYONE admires Sir Richard Branson and his achievements. But is there a sense, after the weekend’s tragic spaceship crash, that it’s all just about him?

Is Branson aiming too high?

“OH, screw it, let’s do it.”

That’s the key phrase, according to the blurb on Richard Branson’s biography Losing My Virginity, that has underpinned his wildly successful business empire which spans such diverse industries as entertainment and aviation.

“Oh, screw it, let’s do it,” is also a pretty fair representation of the tone of comments by Team Branson in the wake of the tragic crash of a Virgin Galactic Spaceship in the Mojave Desert which killed test pilot Michael Alsbury on Friday.

“Space is hard — but worth it,” Branson said. “We will persevere and move forward together.”

Virgin himself Galactic chief executive George Whitesides was singing from exactly the same songbook.

“Space is hard, and today was a tough day,” he said.

“Our future rests on hard days like this but we believe we owe it to folks flying this vehicle... to understand this and move forward, which is what we do,” he said.

Space is hard - but worth it. We will persevere and move forward together http://t.co/kJGG0NQTNf

— Richard Branson (@richardbranson) November 1, 2014

Sir Richard Branson is one of the most admired businessmen in the world. Not only is he the self-styled people’s billionaire, he’s an adventurer extraordinaire. The charismatic 64-year-old has accomplished all sorts of amazing feats in hot air balloons, boats and the rest of it.

Branson clearly craves being known not just as a wealthy rogue with a sense of good fun and adventure, but as a record setter, as a genuine pioneer. That’s why he set up Virgin Galactic in 2004 with the aim of making space tourism a reality. Maybe not an affordable reality for most, but a reality nonetheless.

This was the 35th test flight of his prototype tourist spaceships, so nobody could suggest Branson hasn’t been treating this project with the utmost seriousness and care.

Well, nobody except The Telegraph in the UK, which reports that Virgin Galactic has been accused of ignoring a series of warnings that its $500 million rocket was unsafe for flight.

Or this story, in which a rocket engineer said the use of the highly volatile fuel nitrous oxide in Virgin Galactic spacecraft was like playing “Russian roulette with pilots’ lives”.

Branson heard the criticism and didn’t like it.

Safety has guided every decision we've made over past decade, any suggestion to the contrary is categorically untrue http://t.co/bS8f6gnIKq

— Richard Branson (@richardbranson) November 3, 2014

Sir Richard flew to California to inspect the crash scene over the weekend, which was both a necessary and decent gesture. Yet his tone has still seemed a little distant in the wake of the crash.

We must go on. Space is hard. This is the refrain we keep hearing.

No one is for a minute saying the guy is not genuinely distraught at this tragedy, but if you didn’t know better, you’d say Branson’s legacy as a pioneer is also on his mind right now.

When you think about it, there’s something Willy Wonka-ish about Branson’s dream of taking tourists to space. It’s this utterly fantastical and magical idea which would forever cast Branson as so much more than your everyday old billionaire with a penchant for new school ideas and the old school success symbols of a woman on each arm.

In this video grabbed image, billionaire Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson, at podium, pauses during a news conference before he saluted the bravery of test pilots, and vowed to find out what caused the crash of his prototype space tourism rocket that killed one crew member and injured another during a news conference in Mojave, Calif., Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014. Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo blew apart about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the Mojave airfield after being released from a carrier aircraft Friday. (AP Photo/Scott Fain)

Branson would never quite achieve Wonka status if his space tourism dream failed to materialise.

Meanwhile, a woman called Michelle Saling has lost a husband. The widow of pilot Michael Alsbury told a UK website that she had lost the love of her life and that she was “living in hell right now”.

Branson, for his part, said “We would love to finish what we started some years ago,” and “We hope one day the test pilots will enable people to go into space safely”.

He also said, in a later media statement:

“We do understand the risks involved and we are not going to push on blindly — to do so would be an insult to all those affected by this tragedy. We are going to learn from what went wrong, discover how we can improve safety and performance, and then move forwards together.

I truly believe that humanity’s greatest achievements come out of our greatest pain... We are determined to honour the bravery of the pilots and teams here by learning from this tragedy. Only then can we move forward, united behind a collective desire to push the boundaries of human endeavour.”

TOPSHOTS An National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) team surveys a tail section from the crashed Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo near Cantil, California, on November 01, 2014. British tycoon Richard Branson insisted Saturday his dream of commercial space travel remained alive but warned his company would not "press on blindly" without knowing what caused the spacecraft crash that killed one pilot and seriously injured another on October 31. Speaking to reporters after arriving in the California facility which had been the hub of Virgin Galactic's ambitious space program, Branson said safety remained his paramount concern. "We owe it to our test pilots to find out exactly what went wrong, and once we've found out what went wrong, if we can overcome it, we'll make absolutely certain that the dream lives on," Branson told reporters. His comments at the Mojave Air and Space Port came as a team of federal investigators began probing the causes of Friday's accident, which dealt a devastating setback to the cause of commercial space tourism. AFP PHOTO/JOSH EDELSON

There he went again. Always talking about pushing the boundaries of human endeavour. In one sense, it honoured the life of pilot Michael Alsbury. But in another sense, it was about his legacy.

What do you think? Do you think Branson’s real aim is to push the boundaries of human endeavour or the boundaries of the Branson legend?

We’re keen to hear your thoughts in the comments below.