Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson successfully fulfilled his mission to reach space. He and the three crew then safely returned to Earth.
Flying inside VSS Unity, this success was the culmination of Virgin Galactic’s 17 -year effort to develop commercial spacecraft for travel. Branson and crew arrived at sub-orbital altitude, 88 kilometers above the Earth’s surface.
"What a day. I've been dreaming of this moment since I was little, but honestly, no one can be prepared to see the Earth's view from space. It's all magical," said Branson, one of Britain's richest men.
Soon, people who have bought tickets priced at around USD 250 thousand, will have a similar experience with Branson. They will reach space and see the Earth from above for about 5 minutes without gravity, hovering in the cabin of the aircraft.
Richard BransonThe view seen by Richard Branson in outer space. Photo: AP
In this mission, Unity is carried by a larger aircraft, flying from the Spaceport America runway in New Mexico. At an altitude of 15 kilometers, Unity was released into space. The ship then returned to Earth and Richard Branson immediately tweeted, ‘Welcome to the new space era’.
The three Virgin Galactic officers who joined Branson were Chief Astronaut Instructor Beth Moses, Principal Operations Engineer Colin Bennett, and Vice President of Government Affairs and Research Operations Sirisha Bandla.
Branson also tackles the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, who will also enter space in the next few days. Bezos previously announced that he would fly into space with Blue Origin’s first manned flight on July 20th.
But last week Branson announced that he would go into space on July 11, nine days earlier than the Bezos flight. Now, Branson has really stepped forward over Bezos.
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