BRANSON: I WILL TRAVEL TO SPACE THIS SUMMER

WASHINGTON: British billionaire Richard Branson plans to travel to space within the next four or five months aboard his own Virgin Galactic spaceship.

“My wish is to go up on the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, that’s what we’re working on,” the head of the Virgin group said on Thursday on the sidelines of an event in Washington.

The American Apollo 11 mission landed on the moon July 20, 1969. Virgin Galactic is one of two companies, along with Blue Origin, on its way to sending passengers into space - though just barely, and just for a few minutes.

The companies want to send hundreds or thousands of people on these short “suborbital” flights, meaning that they wouldn’t get high enough to orbit the earth.

These missions would be shorter and more affordable than Spacex’s planned project to send a Japanese billionaire to the moon by 2023 at the earliest.