Virgin Orbit to lay off 85 percent of staff, freeze operations

Virgin Galactic which depends upon those "specialty planes" is doing fine, apparently. It's Virgin Orbit with the 747-based system to orbit that is probably at its end.

Note that Virgin Orbit's niche (small plane-launched rockets into unusual orbits) is already served by the Pegasus rocket, previously by Orbital Sciences and now owned by Northrop. There's doesn't seem to be much demand for it though.

A company doesn't develop the need to cease operations overnight.

There's usually a core of faulty decision-makers who have become ingrained over time, leading the way toward financial unsustainability. Their jobs can be basically untouchable while the company is seemingly operating without undue threat.

Once too much failure is undeniable, these people keep themselves on board to continue administering the company as well as possible before the money runs out.

Still untouchable but when you do the math the company will last a lot longer before total closure, being administered the way they do but without all that expensive operations stuff.

And maybe make a comeback if they can get some support but it may take confidence in their team's ability to succeed with perhaps a proven-to-fail mindset.

Some people can build that kind of confidence sometimes, you never know.

The same thing that leads toward doom could also be what keeps things alive as a zombie.