Richard Branson, the Billionaire who took Jeff Bezos to Space

 


Richard Branson will become the first billionaire to fly into space, ahead of Jeff Bezos. But Branson and his company, Virgin Galactic, faced great challenges before getting to this point.
Branson founded Virgin Galactic in 2004 to provide space travel. Previously, he has founded many large companies such as the Virgin Group conglomerate and the Virgin Atlantic airline.



Branson's business acumen was evident from a young age, but his father wanted him to become a lawyer. While in high school, Branson decided to drop out of school and pursue his dream of opening a music record company.





In 1972, Branson founded Virgin Records, his first company under the Virgin name. Through this company, he managed to associate many legendary groups and musicians such as Rolling Stones, Sex Pistols, Culture Club, and others.



Today, the 70-year-old is one of the richest people in the world and thanks to his contribution to the business world, he has earned the title of 'Sir' from the British Government. According to Forbes data, Branson's current wealth reaches USD 5.9 billion.



   

Branson dreamed of flying into space after witnessing the Apollo 11 moon landing. To realize his dream, Branson registered the name Virgin Galactic in 1999 and the company was just established in 2004.



Once established, Virgin Galactic immediately focused on developing a spacecraft called SpaceShipOne. The aircraft was originally developed by the startup company Scaled Composites which received funding from Mojave Aerospace Ventures, a company owned by the late Paul Allen.



Branson also agreed to work with Allen's company to use SpaceShipOne technology. The London, England-born man hopes Virgin Galactic will be able to take tourists into space in 2007, but the technology will take longer to develop.



Virgin Galactic encountered many problems in development that caused the schedule of manned flights to be pushed back. One of them was the accident that occurred during the SpaceShipTwo test flight on October 31, 2014.



The incident occurred during the fourth test flight using a rocket engine where a technical fault made the aircraft appear to explode in mid-air. This accident claimed the life of pilot Michael Alsbury, while pilot Peter Siebold was seriously injured.



In January 2015, Branson said that he was hesitant to continue developing SpaceShipTwo after the accident. But he decided to continue his mission in the next few years.



After being lowered for several years, SpaceShipTwo returned to the air and started its rocket engine in 2018. In this test flight, VSS Unity managed to reach an altitude of 84,271 feet and successfully landed smoothly, as quoted from Space, Sunday (11/7/2021).



VSS Unity has continued to undergo test flights since then, including the first passenger-carrying flight in 2019. Now Virgin Galactic is preparing to make its first manned flight on July 11, taking Branson into space.



After all test flights are completed, Virgin Galactic plans to fly tourists into space starting in 2022. Hundreds of people have booked tickets for the trip, which costs $ 250 thousand, including celebrities such as Tom Hanks, Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber.
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