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Businessman Keeping Virgin Galactic Ticket

When Virgin Galactic resumed the flight tests of its SpaceShipTwo suborbital vehicle last month, the company notified Edwin Sahakian by email that the craft would be going up on Halloween. Sahakian doesn’t work for Virgin Galactic, which is developing and building its space vehicle at the Mojave Air & Space Port. And his day job as chief executive of a shipping company he founded has nothing to do with space travel. But the 51-year-old Glendale resident did plunk down $200,000 to fly aboard SpaceShipTwo when it eventually starts taking paying passengers up to an altitude of 62 miles above Earth. “I am passionate about aerospace so I was willing to pay that price,” said Sahakian, who heads up Ardwin Freight in Sun Valley. And last month’s crash hasn’t changed his determination to achieve a dream of getting – if not to actual space – at least to an altitude at which he can achieve weightlessness. “I cannot give up on that opportunity,” Sahakian said. Read the full story in the Nov. 17 issue of the San Fernando Valley Business Journal.

Mark Madler
Mark Madler
Mark R. Madler covers aviation & aerospace, manufacturing, technology, automotive & transportation, media & entertainment and the Antelope Valley. He joined the company in February 2006. Madler previously worked as a reporter for the Burbank Leader. Before that, he was a reporter for the City News Bureau of Chicago and several daily newspapers in the suburban Chicago area. He has a bachelor’s of science degree in journalism from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

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