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Virgin Galactic touches down in the Top End

Thurs, 30 Sept 2010

Virgin Galactic’s Stephen Attenborough will be in Darwin this month to talk about how he’s helping make space travel more accessible to the general population.

Attenborough leads the commercial operations team at Virgin Galactic, a job that covers sales, marketing, customer relations, PR and communication as well as the regulatory side of the business. Ultimately, he’s responsible for making sure Virgin Galactic is commercially viable.

“Virgin Galactic was keen to find someone for the business who wasn’t a space nut, someone who could make the project a commercial success,” said Attenborough.

“We are here to make money and that’s why I was brought in.”

But he’s hesitant to use the term ‘space tourism’ to describe what Virgin Galactic is trying to achieve.

“I don’t think that’s the right phrase to use,” said Attenborough.

“It suggests a certain frivolity. I think it’s more accurate to say that Virgin Galactic is creating new means of ‘space access’.”

Attenborough will be speaking at the 2010 Public Relations Institute of Australia National Conference at the Darwin Convention Centre along with representatives from the Vatican, James Hardie and BBC Australia.

PRIA National President Robina Xavier said the Virgin Galactic presentation fits perfectly with this years’ conference theme, PR in a Different Space.

“All of the conference keynotes, workshops and panel discussions will inspire and encourage participants to do what they do best in a different space or from a new perspective,” Ms Xavier said.

The conference includes eight keynote addresses and forty speakers over nine streams in a line-up that promises to get public relations and communication professionals ‘all hot under the collar’, according to Ms Xavier.

“There’ll be case studies including that from Jessica Watson’s Manager Andrew Fraser on her round the world voyage and the BBC’s Louise Alley on bringing Top Gear to Australia.

The 2010 Conference program includes a Gala Dinner and the 2010 Golden Target Awards Ceremony that celebrates campaign best practice at a national level.

Media are welcome to attend all events at the conference at the Darwin Convention Centre from 25 to 26 October 2010.

For more information on the PRIA Conference visit http://www.acevents.com.au/pria2010/.

To arrange an interview, or to attend one of the keynote addresses, please contact:
Janelle Rees at Creative Territory on 8941 9169 or at janelle@creativeterritory.com.

Last Updated: December 2, 2010