http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#Cost_of_Apollo_p...
Edit: It's also worth noting that the same entity that ran the Apollo missions currently has no way of putting people into space, and the last system they had also looked like a plane... and had problems with exploding and killing people.
That's funny, because you were the one who compared them first.
Although the Virgin 60,000 lbf rocket is small by the standards of Apollo, it is still an extremely challenging problem. There are no problem-free or inherently safe options, so safety needs to be engineered in from the bottom up carefully and competently. Otherwise, failures like this will not happen just once.
The engineers involved would do well to study the Apollo program and other successful complex engineering efforts such as nuclear reactors, as well as the counter examples of the two space shuttle that were lost due to management putting schedule ahead of safety.
To put it in perspective, Apollo flew on a rocket with five engines producing 1,500,000 lbf thrust each, on the first stage alone. By contrast, the Virgin motor produces 60,000 lbf thrust for 70 seconds.
The Apollo program had a safety culture configured so that if anyone identified a safety issue, they became responsible for the problem and responsible to sign off that it was corrected.