‘Exciting times ahead’ for astronauttobe Branson
SIR Richard Branson has revealed he is training to become an astronaut as he takes the fight to Amazon boss Jeff Bezos in the commercial space race.
The billionaire, who is attempting to get his space tourism company Virgin Galactic off the ground, said he would be catapulted into space within months.
‘‘We’re talking about months not years — so it’s close. There are exciting times ahead,’’ he told BBC’s Radio 4.
‘‘I’m going for astronaut training, I’m going for fitness training, centrifuge and other training so that my body will hopefully cope well when I go to space.’’
Sir Richard, tech entrepreneur Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos are leading the charge in commercial space travel as they race to get tourists into space.
While Sir Richard believes Musk is ‘‘doing fantastically well’’ in getting cargo into space and building bigger and bigger rockets, the real tussle is between the Virgin boss and Bezos.
‘‘I think we’re both neck and neck as to who will put people into space first.
‘‘Ultimately we have to do it safely. It’s more a race with ourselves to make sure we have the craft that are safe to put people up there.’’
Sir Richard (67) said his astronaut training was going well and he had increased his fitness training by playing more tennis.
‘‘Instead of doing one set of tennis every morning and every evening I’m doing two sets. I’m going kiting and biking — doing whatever it takes to make me as fit as possible.’’
The Virgin founder is also taking part in gruelling centrifuge training which recreates the pressures the human body experiences during space flight.
All astronauts endure Gforce training which simulates the experience of takeoff and travel through Earth’s atmosphere.
Earlier this year Virgin Galactic completed a supersonic test flight of its SpaceShipTwo passenger rocket ship.
It was the first return to the air for the company since a crash in the Californian desert in 2014 killed one pilot and injured another.