Branson confident of conquering space soon
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 this week on the sidelines of an event to honour Virgin Galactic in Washington.
The American Apollo 11 mission landed on the moon on 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 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.
Virgin Galactic flew 80km above the earth, which the US considers the edge of space, for the first time in December (the international consensus is 100km).
Virgin Galactic’s spaceship, called SpaceShipTwo, is commanded by two pilots.
It will be able to carry six passengers along with its two pilots.
Branson has previously announced dates for this first trip into space, though they’ve always come and gone without the voyage happening.
But this time the businessperson claims preparations are in their final stages.
“By July, we should have done enough testing,” he said. “I need to wait for our team to say they’re 100% happy. I don’t want to push them,” he said. –