What Jeff Bezos told Branson as billionaire entrepreneur set to fly to space
PremiumBranson, one of six Virgin Galactic Holding Inc employees strapping in for the ride, has touted the flight as a precursor to a new era of space tourism,
British billionaire Richard Branson was due on Sunday to climb into his Virgin Galactic passenger rocket plane and soar more than 50 miles above the New Mexico desert in the vehicle's first fully crewed test flight to the edge of space.
His ride-along also upstages rival astro-tourism venture Blue Origin and its founder, Amazon mogul Jeff Bezos, in what has been popularized as the "billionaire space race." Bezos has been planning to fly aboard his own suborbital rocketship, the New Shepard, later this month.
Taking to Instagram, Jeff Bezos wished Branson and the whole team a "successful and safe flight".
Branson, a week away from his 71st birthday, has insisted he and Bezos are friendly rivals and not engaged in a personal contest to beat one another into space.
Branson, one of six Virgin Galactic Holding Inc employees strapping in for the ride, has touted the flight as a precursor to a new era of space tourism, with the company he founded poised to begin commercial operations next year.
A discount travel service it is not. But demand is apparently strong, with several hundred wealthy would-be citizen astronauts already having booked reservations, priced at around $250,000 per ticket.
The Swiss-based investment bank UBS has estimated the potential value of the space tourism market reaching $3 billion annually by 2030.
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Proving rocket travel safe for the general public is key, given the inherent dangers of spaceflight.
An earlier prototype of the Virgin Galactic rocket plane crashed during a test flight over California's Mojave Desert in 2014, killing one pilot and seriously injuring another.
Branson's participation in Sunday's flight, announced just over a week ago, is in keeping with his persona as the daredevil executive whose Virgin brands - from airlines to music companies - have long been associated with ocean-crossing exploits in sailboats and hot-air balloons.
A third player, fellow billionaire proprietor Elon Musk's SpaceX, plans to send its first all-civilian crew (without Musk) into orbit in September, after having already launched numerous cargo payloads and astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA.
The launch of Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity rocket plane on Sunday will mark the company's 22nd test flight of its SpaceShipTwo system, and its fourth crewed mission beyond Earth's atmosphere. But it will be the first to carry a full compliment of space travelers - two pilots and four "mission specialists," Branson among them.
Weather permitting, the gleaming white spaceplane will take off at around 0900 ET (1300 GMT) on Sunday attached to the underside of the twin-fuselage carrier jet VMS Eve - named for Branson's mother - from Spaceport America near the aptly named New Mexico town of Truth or Consequences. Virgin Galactic occupies a large section of that facility, about 75 miles (120 km) north of Las Cruces.
With inputs from agencies
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