The self-made billionaire beat fellow space race rivals Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.
The Virgin Galactic vessel has reached the boundary of space in the early hours of this morning, travelling some 80 kilometres into the stratosphere. The spacecraft was carrying its 71-year-old owner Richard Branson along with two pilots and a handful of passengers, as a crowd of 500 people watched the history-making orbit from the ground.
An unashamed plug for Branson’s space-tourism company, the round-trip flight lasted an hour and saw the Virgin owner and his crew enjoy 16 minutes of zero-gravity weightlessness. The vessel is set to take paying customers onboard as early as next year, and Branson had an inspirational message for Earthlings during a mid-flight livestream.
“To all you kids down there with a dream, looking up to the stars…if we can do this, just imagine what you can do.”
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While the years-in-the-making flight successfully launched Branson into the suborbital zone, it also marked the London billionaires’ victory in the commercial space race against rival star-gazers Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. The Amazon owner had planned to launch his Blue Origin spacecraft just nine days from now on the anniversary of Apollo 11, and Musks’ SpaceX company has been building moon and Mars ships to orbit sometime in September.
Big day ahead. Great to start the morning with a friend. Feeling good, feeling excited, feeling ready.
Watch #Unity22 launch and livestream TODAY at 7:30 am PT | 10:30 am ET | 3:30 pm BST.@virgingalactic @elonmusk https://t.co/1313b4RAKI pic.twitter.com/FRQqrQEbH8
— Richard Branson (@richardbranson) July 11, 2021
All this talk of space exploration might seem like the stuff of childhood dreams, but would-be Buzz Lightyear’s must be willing to fork out a couple of million to secure a seat to the stars. But hey, when life on Earth has turned to a COVID mess, why not hitch a ride and kick it with some aliens?
