Richard Branson, the billionaire, reaches space in his own ship.
Richard Branson, the swashbuckling entrepreneur, flew into space on his own winged rocket ship on Sunday, defeating fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos in his most daring escapade yet. Branson, who is nearly 71 years old, and his Virgin Galactic crew reached an altitude of around 53 miles (88 kilometres) over the New Mexico desert, high enough to experience three to four minutes of weightlessness and witness the Earth's curvature, before safely gliding to a runway landing.
After the trip home aboard the sleek, white space plane named Unity, Branson said, "The whole thing was just fantastic."
The 15-minute up-and-down flight of the rocket ship part, which was about the same length as Alan Shepard's first U.S. spaceflight in 1961, was intended as a confidence-boosting advertisement for Virgin Galactic, which wants to begin taking paying clients on joyrides next year.
Branson beat Bezos by nine days to become the first person to launch his own spaceship. He was also the first septuagenarian to travel into space. (Astronaut John Glenn, who was 77 at the time, travelled aboard the shuttle in 1998.)
In the first stage of the flight, a twin-fuselage aircraft with Unity attached below took off in front of roughly 500 people, including Branson's family.
At a height of around 8 1/2 miles (13 kilometres), Unity separated from the mother ship and started its engine, reaching more than Mach 3, or three times the speed of sound, when it penetrated the boundary of space.
As the rocket plane touched down, spectators applauded, leapt into the air, and hugged. As he came out onto the runway, he pumped his fists and dashed toward his family, hugging his wife and children and scooping up his three grandchildren in his arms.
Sirisha Bandla, an aeronautical engineer, joined British entrepreneur Richard Branson on Virgin Galactic's first fully crewed suborbital test flight from New Mexico on Sunday, becoming the third Indian-origin woman to journey into space.
From the sidelines, former Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, a one-time commander of the International Space Station, observed, "That was a fantastic accomplishment." “I'm really overjoyed at what this now-open door will lead to. It's a fantastic time. Virgin Galactic has now completed three test flights into space with crews of only two or three.”
On July 11, 2021, the Virgin Galactic passenger rocket plane VSS Unity, carrying billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson and his crew, falls after reaching the edge of space above Spaceport America in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, USA.
The flamboyant Virgin Atlantic Airways founder, who was born in London, wasn't intended to fly until later this summer. However, after Bezos revealed intentions to launch his own rocket into space from Texas on July 20, the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, he allocated himself to an earlier voyage. Branson vehemently claimed that he was attempting to outdo Bezos.
Branson, who has kitesurfed the English Channel and attempted to circumnavigate the globe in a hot-air balloon, signed the astronaut log book and wisecracked: "My name is Branson." Sir Richard Branson is a British entrepreneur. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, Permission to be ecstatic.
Elon Musk of SpaceX, one of Branson's main opponents in the battle for space tourism among the world's richest men, came to New Mexico to see the flight and wished Branson "Godspeed!" through Twitter.
Bezos wished for a safe and successful flight as well, but he also moved to Twitter to list the ways in which he believes his company's rides will be better.
Bezos' Blue Origin business plans to take people past the so-called Karman line, which is 62 miles (100 kilometres) above Earth and is regarded as the edge of space by worldwide aviation and aerospace federations.
The barrier between the atmosphere and space, according to NASA, the Air Force, the Federal Aviation Administration, and some astrophysicists, begins 50 miles (80 kilometres) up.
The risks to Branson and his crew were highlighted in 2007, when three workers were killed during a rocket motor test in California's Mojave Desert, and again in 2014, when a Virgin Galactic rocket plane broke apart during a test flight, killing one pilot and critically wounding the other. Branson, ever the showman, insisted on a global livestream of the trip on Sunday morning and invited celebrities and former space station astronauts to Spaceport America in New Mexico.
On July 11, 2021, the Virgin Galactic passenger rocket plane VSS Unity, carrying billionaire Richard Branson and his crew, ignites its engine before taking off from Spaceport America near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, in the United States.
While CBS Late Show host Stephen Colbert served as master of ceremonies, R&B musician Khalid performed his new track "New Normal," a tribute to the dawning of space tourism.
When he returned to Earth, he launched a sweepstakes for two tickets to a Virgin Galactic adventure once tourist flights commence.
With tickets starting at $250,000 each, Virgin Galactic has already received over 600 reservations from would-be space passengers. Blue Origin is holding off on publicising ticket costs until after Bezos' trip.
Kerianne Flynn, who signed up to fly with Virgin Galactic in 2011, was nervous about the launch on Sunday.
“I think there will be nothing quite like going up there and looking down on the Earth,” she remarked. “Hopefully, future generations will be able to go up there and see what's up there,” she continued.
Musk's SpaceX, which is already delivering personnel to the International Space Station for NASA and building moon and Mars spacecraft, intends to take passengers on more than just quick excursions up and down. Instead, they will spend days in orbit around the Earth, with tickets costing millions of dollars. The company plans to launch its first private flight in September.
Musk has stated that he has no plans to travel to space in the near future.
Former NASA astronaut Chris Ferguson, who commanded the last shuttle flight ten years ago, remarked, "It's a whole new horizon out there, new opportunities, new locations." He currently works for Boeing, which is putting its own space capsule through its paces.
Ferguson continued, "This is actually kind of like the birth of commercial air travel, except 100 years later." “There's a lot in the pipeline.”
