Branson stuns world with grand space stunt
British billionaire Richard Branson flew into space on Sunday aboard a Virgin Galactic vessel, a voyage he described as the “experience of a lifetime” — and one he hopes will usher in an era of lucrative space tourism.
Swashbuckling entrepreneur hurtled into space aboard his own winged rocket ship, beating out fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos.
Bezos, the richest person in the world, is due to fly on July 20 on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket.
“Congratulations to all our wonderful team at Virgin Galactic for 17 years of hard, hard work to get us this far,” he said during a live feed as the VSS Unity spaceship glided back to Spaceport America in New Mexico.
It reached a peak altitude of around 85 kilometres - beyond the boundary of space, according to the United States - allowing the passengers to experience weightlessness and admire the Earth’s curvature.
The trip proceeded without drama, and touchdown occurred at around 9:40 am Mountain Time ( 1540 GMT), about an hour ater take-off.
The brief, up-and-down flight - the space plane’s portion took only about 15 minutes, or about as long as Alan Shepard’s first US spaceflight in 1961 - was a splashy and unabashedly commercial plug for Virgin Galactic, which plans to start taking paying customers on joyrides next year.
The mission’s success means Branson has beaten fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos in the race to be the first tycoon to cross the final frontier in a ship built by a company he founded.
Earlier, a massive carrier plane took off and ascended to 50,000 feet before dropping VSS Unity to complete the rest of the flight using its rocket-powered engine. The spaceplane carried two pilots and four passengers, including Branson.
The ship then re-entered the atmosphere, lowered its flexible wings and glided back to the runway. A smiling Branson hugged loved ones ater the trip.
“It’s a beautiful day to go to space,” the brash Brit wrote in a tweet earlier where he posted a video of himself biking to the base and meeting with his crewmates, all Virgin employees.
He also posted a picture of himself standing in a kitchen with Spacex boss Elon Musk, who’d come to show his support.
Several tourists journeyed to the International Space Station in the 2000s, but on Russian rockets.
Branson’s official role is to evaluate the private astronaut experience to enhance the journey for future clients.
Ater Sunday, Virgin Galactic plans two further flights, and then the start of regular commercial operations from early 2022. The ultimate goal is to conduct 400 flights per year.
Some 600 tickets have already been sold to people from 60 different countries — including Hollywood celebrities — for prices ranging from $200,000 to $250,000.
And though, according to Branson, “space belongs to us all,” the opportunity for now remains the preserve of the privileged.
“When we return, I will announce something very exciting to give more people the chance to become an astronaut,” he promised.
Branson became the first person to blast off in his own spaceship, beating Bezos by nine days.
He also became only the second septuagenarian to go into space. Astronaut John Glenn flew on the shutle at age 77 in 1998.
Bezos sent his congratulations, adding: “Can’t wait to join the club!” — though he also took to Twiter earlier in the week to enumerate the ways in which believes his company’s rides will be beter.
Earlier in the day Bezos himself wished Branson “best of luck” in an Instagram post.
With about 500 people watching, including Branson’s family, Unity was carried alot underneath a twin-fuselage aircrat. Then, at an altitude of about 13 kilometres, Unity detached from the mother ship and fired its engine, reaching more than Mach 3, or three times the speed of sound, as it pierced the edge of space.
Spectators cheered, jumped into the air and embraced as the rocket plane touched down. Branson pumped his fists as he stepped out onto the runway and ran toward his family, bear-hugging his wife and children and scooping up his three grandchildren in his arms.
The competition in the space tourism sector, whose imminent rise has been announced for years, has come to a head this month.
The spaceplane carried two pilots, 4 passengers, including Branson; Bezos wished Branson ‘best of luck;’ Virgin Galactic plans two further flights, and then start regular commercial operations from early next year.
English entrepreneur Richard Branson, head of Virgin Galactic, has touted the mission as a precursor to a new era of space tourism even as the VSS Unity spaceship glided back to Spaceport America in New Mexico.
Gulf Today’s Science Team brings you the highlights of the mission beyond Earth
British billionaire Richard Branson on Sunday soared more than 50 miles above the New Mexico desert aboard his Virgin Galactic rocket plane and safely returned in the vehicle’s first fully crewed test flight to space, a symbolic milestone for a venture he started 17 years ago.
Branson, one of six Virgin Galactic Holding Inc employees strapped in for the ride, has touted the mission as a precursor to a new era of space tourism, with the company he founded in 2004 poised to begin commercial operations next year.
The success of the flight also gave the flamboyant entrepreneur bragging rights in a highly publicized rivalry with fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos, the Amazon online retail mogul who had hoped to fly into space first aboard his own space company’s rocket.
Sunday’s launch of the VSS Unity passenger rocket plane marked the company’s 22nd test flight of its Spaceshiptwo system, and its fourth crewed mission beyond Earth’s atmosphere. It was also the first to carry a full complement of space travellers — two pilots and four “mission specialists,” Branson among them.
A week away from his 71st birthday, Branson and his crewmates walked onto the tarmac waving to a throng of onlookers before boarding the Unity rocket plane parked at the end of a taxiway. Video posted by Virgin Galactic showed Branson arriving earlier at the takeoff site on his bicycle and greeting crewmates with a hug.
A festive gathering of space industry executives, future customers and other well-wishers were on hand to witness the launch, which was livestreamed in a presentation hosted by late-night television comedian Stephen Colbert. Among those present was fellow billionaire and space industry pioneer Elon Musk, who also is founder of electric carmaker Tesla Inc .
Grammy-nominated R&B singer Khalid took the stage ater the flight to perform his forthcoming single “New Normal.”
The gleaming white spaceplane was carried alot on Sunday atached to the underside of the dual-fuselage jet VMS Eve (named for Branson’s late mother) in a takeoff from Spaceport America, a state-owned facility near the aptly named town of Truth or Consequences. Virgin Galactic leases a large section of the 18,000-acre site.
Reaching its high-altitude launch point at about 46,000 feet, Unity was released from the mothership and fell away as its crew ignited the vehicle’s rocket, sending it streaking straight upward at supersonic speed to the blackness of space some 53 miles (85.9 km) high.
The spaceplane’s contrail was clearly visible from the ground as it soared through the upper atmosphere, to the cheers of the crowd below.
At the apex of the climb with the rocket shut down, the crew then experienced a few minutes of microgravity, before the spaceplane shited into re-entry mode, and began a gliding descent to a runway back at the spaceport. The entire flight, from takeoff to landing, lasted about an hour.
HIGH-COST TICKETS
Virgin has said it plans at least two further test flights of the spaceplane in the months ahead before beginning regular commercial operation in 2022.
This is no discount travel service. But demand is apparently strong, with several hundred wealthy would-be citizen astronauts already having booked reservations, priced at around $250,000 per ticket.
The Swiss-based investment bank UBS has estimated the potential value of the space tourism market reaching $3 billion annually by 2030.
Proving rocket travel safe for the public is key, given the inherent dangers of spaceflight.
An earlier prototype of the Virgin Galactic rocket plane crashed during a test flight over California’s Mojave Desert in 2014, killing one pilot and seriously injuring another.
Branson’s participation in Sunday’s flight, announced just over a week ago, was in keeping with his persona as the daredevil executive whose Virgin brands - from airlines to music companies — have long been associated with ocean-crossing exploits in sailboats and hot-air balloons.
SPACE RACE
His ride-along also upstaged rival astro-tourism venture Blue Origin and its founder, Amazon mogul Jeff Bezos, in what has been popularized as the “billionaire space race.”
Bezos has been planning to fly aboard his own suborbital rocketship, the New Shepard, later this month.
Branson has insisted he and Bezos are friendly rivals and not engaged in a personal contest to beat one another into space.
Bezos posted a message on Instagram on
Saturday wishing Branson and his team “a successful and safe flight,” but nonetheless there has been some public rancor between the two.
Blue Origin has disparaged Virgin Galactic as falling short of a true spaceflight experience, saying that unlike Unity, Bezos’s New Shepard tops the 62-mile-high-mark ( 100 km), called the Kármán line, set by an international aeronautics body as defining the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space.
“New Shepard was designed to fly above the Kármán line so none of our astronauts have an asterisk next to their name,” Blue Origin said in a series of Twiter posts on Friday.
However, US space agency NASA and the US Air Force both define an astronaut as anyone who has flown higher than 50 miles ( 80 km).
A third player in the space race, Musk’s Spacex, plans to send its first all-civilian crew (without Musk) into orbit in September, ater having already launched numerous cargo payloads and astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA.
Branson’s official role in Sunday’s test flight was to “evaluate the private astronaut experience,” according to Virgin’s press materials.
The spaceplane’s two pilots, Dave Mackay and Michael Masucci, were tasked with controlling the ignition and shutoff of the ship’s rocket, activating the vehicle’s “feathered” tail maneuver for re-entry and steering the ship back to Earth.