Virgin Galactic continues space travel efforts

Branson said on Saturday that "efforts to provide commercial space travel will continue," despite a fatal rocket ship crash in California's Mojave Desert during a test flight on Friday.

"We've always known that the road to space is extremely difficult - and that every new transportation system has to deal with bad days early in their history," he said.

"Space is hard - but worth it. We will persevere and move forward together," he added in a statement issued as he refueled en route to the site of Friday's crash.

The British business tycoon described the crash of the rocket known as SpaceShipTwo as a "devastating loss" and tweeted his condolences late on Friday night.

Before Friday's crash, SpaceShipTwo's first commercial flight was scheduled for the first six months of 2015. More than 800 people have already paid or put down deposits for a suborbital flight, lasting just a matter of minutes, which has an initial ticket price of $200,000 (160,000 euros).

The incident was the second disaster involving a US spacecraft in one week, after an unmanned Orbital Sciences rocket carrying supplies to the international Space Station exploded post-launch on Tuesday.

ksb/glb (AFP, dpa)