A new firm in the field of space tourism has recently come under fire, after taking people’s money and making promises of space travel that they obviously could not keep. The company has promised launch missions for 2011, 2015, and many subsequent years to come, yet there has been no launch into the cosmos, despite having been paid by many a potential space-goer. One customer paid up to $100,000 to go into space, realizing a childhood dream, but his journey never happened.
Having been sent no formal updates or apologies from the space tourism company, Xcor, one customer tried to get a refund, but the company simply advised him to find someone to by his ticket by the year 2017. At least he would receive $35,000 of the $100,000 spent on the ticket, but worse experiences were yet to come. In late 2017, the company, Xcor, filed for bankruptcy.
Over 282 people held tickets for space travel from Xcor. Now, they will never see a refund and will never resell their tickets to other individuals, considering that the company does not even exist any longer. Some would-be astronauts and customers of Xcor’s have also opted to take legal action against the bunk company. Lawyers have advised them not to get their hopes up, however, because there is only a slim chance that any funds will be returned to anyone. If any amount of money could be refunded or retrieved from the dead company, the case would become convoluted and complicated due to the number of outside entities required in order to process such a particularly peculiar case.
MAny customers were more upset about their dreams being shattered than their money being squandered. Even Nasa lent the company some credibility, hiring Xcor to carry experiments into space. The company had us all fooled, however, and could be compared to a snake-oil salesman.
