Billionaire Richard Branson founded his own space company in 2004 in the hope of fulfilling his dream of going to space.
On Sunday at 16.30 Norwegian time, his spaceship is scheduled to take off from the desert in New Mexico.
– It’s a beautiful day to travel to space, Branson tweeted along with a picture of billionaire colleague and space tourism rival Elon Musk before leaving.
There was great cheering and applause among spectators and the audience, when the plane took off from the runway.
In the VSS Unity spacecraft, they will experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see the outline of the earth beneath them. The whole trip is expected to last around 90 minutes.
Branson competes with other super-riches for space tourism. In nine days, the American Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will go to space.
Rocket plane
Together with a crew of two and three other Virgin Galactic employees, Branson will fly to the edge of space.
In the VSS Unity spacecraft, they will experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see the outline of the earth beneath them. The whole trip is expected to last around 90 minutes.
Branson’s concept is a small spacecraft that hangs under a specially built aircraft. It is taken high into the atmosphere, where it is released at an altitude of about 13 kilometers.
The vessel then flies the last part out into the space for its own engine, to a maximum altitude of around 70 kilometers. The rocket plane finally lands on a regular runway.
Accelerated the trip
Branson was supposed to take off later this year, before his company starts bringing paying passengers next year.
But on July 2, Branson stated that he was speeding up the trip, but insisted that it was not a race, and that he was not trying to beat Bezos. The Unity spacecraft has already been on three manned space missions.
SpaceX boss and Tesla founder Elon Musk was in the audience when Branson’s spaceship took off.
Musk has also bought a ticket for a future trip with Virgin Galactic, according to Sunday Times’ sources.
See you there so I can wish you luck, Musk tweeted.
A few hours later, Bezos voted in and sent a congratulatory message.
Different concepts
Bezos and Blue Origin focus on a more classic space rocket, which takes off straight up and has a capsule on top.
The launch vehicle lands alone, while the capsule descends under three parachutes as space capsules have done since the earliest space travel.
Although Branson will be first, it is not clear which spaceflight will be “best”. Branson’s trip will be longer, but Bezos will fly higher.
Branson has several windows in its spacecraft, but Bezos’ capsule has larger windows.
Bezos’ rocket has completed five times as many test trips as Unity, but never with people on board.
“Holidays” for the richest
By the way, it is not just the “tourist managers” in the room who have a lot of money to spend on an exclusive flight.
Virgin Galactic has sold around 600 tickets for between 200,000 and 250,000 dollars each. This means that it costs around two million kroner to take part in one of the trips, which is scheduled to start next year.
Blue Origin has neither the prices nor the start date ready for its commercial flights.
The only “ticket” they have sold so far went up for auction to the unknown passenger who will be with Bezos on July 20. The winning bid was $ 28 million.
Several tourists traveled to the International Space Station in the 2000s, but then with Russian rockets.
(©NTB / TV 2)
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