Virgin Galactic tackles climate change

Richard Branson's plans for fossil fuel-burning space tourism flights may not have sat too well with his high-profile green commitments. But now the billionaire entrepreneur has moved to answer his critics by announcing that the Virgin Galactic "space line" will also carry scientific instruments for gathering new data on climate change.

Speaking in a video message to space industry delegates at the 59th International Astronautical Congress in Glasgow yesterday, Branson said that the scientific project underlined his commitment to tackling climate change.

"To my mind there is no greater or more immediate challenge than that posed by climate change," he said. "It's therefore more than fitting that the very first science to be conducted on board our new vehicles may be specifically directed at increasing our understanding and knowledge of the atmosphere and from there, to better inform our decisions as to the most effective ways of dealing with climate change."

Virgin Galactic will team up with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) to attach a number of scientific instruments to the carrier aircraft, WhiteKnightTwo, which will take the Virgin Atlantic space craft to around 50,000ft.

"Almost everything Noaa does at the moment is at 25,000ft maximum altitude. It's quite difficult to find research aircraft that do atmospheric testing above that," Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic, told reporters at the conference.

WhiteKnight Two, which is expected to undertake its first test flight within five weeks, will carry instruments for measuring CO2 and methane levels in the upper atmosphere as well as equipment for taking flask samples of the air.

Whitehorn said that once the full space craft, named SpaceShipTwo, is complete Virgin Atlantic will be able to provide Noaa with regular atmospheric samples at heights of up to 110Km.

The partnership would represent a major breakthrough for climate change scientists who until now have struggled to get reliable samples from such heights.