I’d love to soar into space with Branson
ICOULDN’T be more thrilled and excited that Richard Branson has FINALLY made it. (I know a lot of people find him really annoying but please look at what he has achieved!). So Virgin Galactic finally made a successful supersonic flight into the low atmosphere – officially into SPACE – with two pilots and a mannequin named Annie as a stand-in passenger, as well as four research experiments for NASA.
“Today we have shown Virgin Galactic can open space to the world,” Sir Richard said. He hoped ordinary, fee-paying passengers would be travelling to the edges of space by the end of next year. He himself wasn’t on this flight but he and his family will probably be next.
Mind you, Richard’s mother – who’s 94 – has often said she wants to go aboard and it’s always “end of next year” and it still hasn’t happened!
It is an astounding accomplishment, of course, haunted by danger and tragedy as all space programmes are. But this time, it looks as though they are really on the way.
If I had the money, I would definitely be on the soonest flight possible. I’m a kid of the space age.
I’ve always wanted to be an astronaut, although as I got older and it got rather less likely that it could be either possible or affordable, I knew I would never handle even the training required for a passenger.
However, what Richard has done is try and now ultimately make it possible for ordinary civilian astronauts – unlike the paying millionaires who’ve already made it aboard the International Space Station via the Russian space programme. Until now, you’ve had to be a billionaire and also astronaut-fit (meaning super-fit).
The first paying private astronaut (he hates being described as a space tourist) launched from Russia’s Star City on April 28, 2001. He was American businessman Dennis Tito who reportedly paid more than $20million for his flight. He made his money in the world of finance but had once been an engineer at NASA, and was always a space nut. On the day Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, Tito vowed that one day he would go too. He finally did, at the age of 61, and had to spend months in training. It proved to a lot of sceptics that there was a market for private citizens to go into space. At first, NASA hated the idea. They thought a non-professional crewmember, untrained on all critical station systems, and who would require constant supervision, would be a burden.
And what if he had a heart attack or stroke? What would they do then – transport a corpse back to Earth? However, six others followed, all coughing up to between $20million and $40million for the pleasure. Including two millionaires whose fathers were astronauts.
ONE, RICHARD Garriott, is British born. He’s a fantasy video game developer (Ultima, Tabula Rasa?) and he followed in the footsteps of his father, NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, and travelled to the International Space Station in 2008. He had actually bought the first-ever ticket into space but illness forced him to cancel the trip and so he sold the ticket to Dennis Tito!
No one has been a “private astronaut” since 2009 however.
So the real progress is now being actively pursued by commercial companies such as Space X (Elon Musk), Blue Origin (Amazon chief Jeff Bezos) and Branson. All have suffered setbacks though, and Virgin had a human tragedy when, on a test flight in 2014, one pilot was injured killed and another seriously when VSS Enterprise crashed.
Today, though, the pilots of SpaceShip Two get their astronaut’s wings from the FAA. Richard Branson tweeted: “Today, for the first time in history, a crewed spaceship built to carry private, paying passengers reached space.
“So this could truly be the beginning of a new era. It’s your turn to come to New Mexico where we have a fantastic spaceport. Bring your friends and family. This really could be the ride of a lifetime.”
So now I’ve just got to win the lottery. Space may not be the preserve of billionaires any more but I bet it’ll still cost BIG money!
By the way, while being interviewed from the Mojave Desert (where Virgin Galactic’s craft is based), Sir Richard was asked about Theresa May/Brexit/ the no-confidence vote and the world of business.
He was unequivocal: “If we have a hard Brexit, it would be devastating for British companies and if it is devastating for British companies then it’ll be devastating for people who work in those companies, and it’ll be devastating for people who have to pay mortgages.
“A hard Brexit would be devastating for the British people and the British markets, and we just pray that never happens.” So, devastating then?