Virgin Galactic surface record-breaking activities. As part of Branson's promotion of the firm, he has added a variation of the Virgin Galactic livery to his personal business jet, the Dassault Falcon 900EX "Galactic girl" (G-GALX). The Spaceship Company (TSC) was founded by Richard Branson through Virgin Group (which owned 70%), and Burt Rutan through Scaled Composites (which owned 30%), to build commercial spaceships and launch aircraft for space travel. From the time of TSC’s formation in 2005, the launch customer was Virgin Galactic, which contracted to purchase five SpaceShipTwos and two WhiteKnightTwos; Scaled Composites was contracted to develop and build the initial
Space Coast Office of Tourism had a strong focus on tourism through the space industry, and the industry accounted for as much as 15% of the tourism in the region, but with a reduction in shuttle launches this dropped to under 5% by 2005. Accordingly, the office had to move their focus to alternative tourism operations, selling "beaches, cruise ships and nature tourism", and after the Space Shuttle "Columbia" disaster in 2003, the Space Shuttle was dropped from their advertising campaigns. Although the "Discovery's" launch in 2005 did see a return of astronaut imagery, the region's dependency on the space industry was much reduced, and