The race for private space has been going on for well over a decade, but yesterday was the first time one of those billionaire space preneurs put his money where his mouth is and actually took the trip into space.
- Sir Richard Branson took a trip aboard his company’s VSS Unity rocket plane and reached an altitude of 85 km, or about 53 miles.
- That’s technically just the very edge of space and only by US standards. The true international standard for space (called the Kármán Line) starts at 100 km.
- But that’s just splitting hairs.
- The event was broadcast live, although there were some technical problems getting live signals from the spaceship. You can check out the full video here.
- He was accompanied by Beth Moses, Colin Bennett and Sirisha Bandla, all high-ranking members of the company, to conduct tests and experiments there. You join a list of fewer than 600 people to reach these heights.
Branson, on the other hand, was only there as a tourist.
- This makes him the Billionaire Space Race winner, ousting Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk to take the crown.
- While he’s floating in sub-orbit had to say that:
- “To all the kids out there – I was a kid with a dream once and looked up at the stars. Now I’m an adult in a spaceship…. If we can do that, just imagine what you can do. “
- (Side note: you need roughly $ 5 billion.)
- Many people condemn these ventures as vanity projects for the ultra-rich, with more pressing issues like world hunger and rampant inequality deserving their attention and funding.
- And they are not wrong.
That said, the goal is to get this out to the public (and make a ton of money in the process).
- Branson first founded Virgin Galactic 17 years ago. way back in 2004. He initially thought he could bring space tourism to commercial markets by 2007.
- Although the company missed this target by a long way, plans to start commercial flights in early 2022.
- The company has already more than sold 600 tickets at $ 250,000 each for future flights. Customers include Tom Hanks, Justin Bieber and Leonardo DiCaprio.
- The other space tourism company, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, will also offer commercial suborbital flights that reach altitudes above 100 km (60 miles).
- Elon Musk’s SpaceX aims even higher by enabling rockets to reach orbital speeds. This makes the journey in hours or days in space instead of minutes.
- Admittedly, that costs significantly more. Last travelers to the International Space Station Paid $ 55 million for the 10 day trip.
- We all barely justify our daily coffee expenses now.
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(Sorry British)
See you tomorrow (hopefully)
Nick Fernandez, editor
