MORE...Branson...Gore...Whitehorn...

I have a unique take on the recent Climate Awareness Explosion.

Through an ironic twist of fate, The Environment, my pet cause, suddenly became the pet cause of both Richard Branson and Al Gore.

Branson’s Virgin Galactic Airways is my primary competition in today’s New Space Race.

Although the Virgin Media Machine has touted Branson’s efforts loudly, he is no closer to reaching his stated Space goals than I am to mine.

Therefore, in the battle for first, I stay abreast of developments with Virgin/Branson.

It’s simply a matter of knowing the competition.

Our first contact was in 1999, when I submitted my proposal for GAIA TWO to Virgin.

They requested that I continue to inform them of my progress, and that decisions were forthcoming.

As we all know, Virgin went to Scaled Composites, and Bert Rutan for their vehicle.

However, I have continued to correspond with Will Whitehorn, Virgin Galactic President, and Branson’s right hand man ever since.

Correspond is euphemistic at this point.

Will no longer responds very often, but he sees my comments and suggestions regularly.

At some earlier point in time, I offended Will’s sensibilities with an email.

These days he only gets back to me when there is something contentious to deny.

I believe the turning point of our pen pal relationship came when I commented about some foible in Virgin’s plans by writing on my blog, “It’s too late to stop the trainwreck…”

This was in relation to some boondoggle by Virgin Galactic, and was intended as a friendly jibe.

Whitehorn responded by BlackBerry, while in transit to a real train wreck, in which a Virgin Commuter Train had derailed and caused serious injury and damage.

To this day, I don’t think Will has forgiven me for that unfortunately timed transgression.

( No kiddin'...it actually happened exactly like that...the icy chill down my spine while reading Will's BlackBerry message was palpable...)

But, it could also have been from the time I accused him of lying to a US House Sub-Committee when proposing his Space Port America ideas to the funding agencies.

Whitehorn stressed that no Government investment would be needed in financing said venture during his speech before the committee.

In his own words, he later told me that investment/financing deals were made with New Mexico officials while the hearings were in progress, and closed his response with, “Nobody has ever successfully called me a liar. Don’t you be first.”

I think the stress is on ‘successfully’ in this case.

All of which adds up to my reasons for doubting Sir Richard’s real purpose with his Virgin Galactic escapades.

Adding to these doubts is the timing of his association with the Esteemed Al Gore, or Algore ( like some overstuffed, lurching, mythical Frankensteinian presence ), as I like to call him.

Just at the time that Virgin needed a big publicity push for their new ventures in the US, Sir Richard decided to anoint Algore “…the leading advocate for confronting the threat of Global Warming for...thirty years…”.

This according to Branson’s newly minted ( September ’07 ) website touting his Virgin Earth Challenge...

NOTE...I just discovered that The Virgin Earth Challenge has become a subsite of the Virgin webpage...no longer worth its own site, I guess.

From the day these two guys got together, to right now, we have been inundated by Algore’s presence, and he's getting paid for the publicity.

That’s some serious representation by the Virgin Media Machine at work, Folks.

Imagine what you’ll be hearing and seeing when the machine is turned loose on Virgin Galactic.

If all runs true to form, pretty soon we’ll be afraid not to go on one of Sir Richard’s voyages.

Heck, it only took them a few years to instill a fear of breathing into us all.