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Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic complete successful space flight

By William Harwood

July 12, 2021 / 7:09 AM EDT / CBS News

Virgin Galactic owner Richard Branson rocketed into space Sunday, an edge-of-the-seat sub-orbital test flight intended to demonstrate his company's air-launched spaceplane is ready for passengers who can afford the ultimate thrill ride.

And it appeared to do just that, zooming to an altitude just above 50 miles and giving Branson and his five crewmates about three minutes of weightlessness and spectacular views of Earth before plunging back into the atmosphere for a spiraling descent to touchdown at Virgin's New Mexico launch site.

"I have dreamt of this moment since I was a kid but honestly, nothing could prepare you for the view of Earth from space," Branson, 70, said after landing, at a rare loss for words. "It was just magical. ... I'm just taking it all in, it's unreal."

The flight effectively upstaged Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who  plans a sub-orbital spaceflight of his own aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft on July 20 as the two companies compete for passengers in the emerging commercial space marketplace.

Bezos complimented Branson and his team after landing, posting a note to Instagram saying "congratulations on the flight. Can't wait to join the club!"

Branson's trip began in dramatic fashion as Virgin's twin-fuselage carrier jet — with the VSS Unity rocket-powered spaceplane bolted under its wing — lifted away from the company's Spaceport America launch site near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, at 8:40 a.m. local time (10:40 a.m. EDT).

Joining the globe-trotting billionaire aboard Unity were pilots David Mackay and Michael Masucci, along with Virgin astronaut trainer Beth Moses, flight engineer Colin Bennett and Sirisha Bandla, the company's vice president of government relations.

With a throng of reporters and a global audience following along on YouTube and across Virgin's social media channels, the Virgin mothership VMS Eve slowly climbed to an altitude of about 45,000 feet and then, after a final round of safety checks, released Unity high above the New Mexico desert.

Seconds later, Mackay and Masucci, both veterans of earlier test flights to space, ignited Unity's hybrid rocket motor, slamming the crew back in their seats as the spacecraft shot forward and pitched up onto a near-vertical trajectory.

Burning rubberized solid propellant with liquid nitrous oxide, Unity's hybrid motor fired for about one minute, accelerating the craft to about three times the speed of sound before shutting down.

The spaceplane continued zooming upward along a ballistic trajectory, giving Branson and company a chance to briefly unstrap, float about the cabin and marvel at the spectacular view as Unity reached its maximum altitude of 53.5 miles — three-and-a-half miles above what NASA and the FAA consider the "boundary" of space.

Live video from inside the spacecraft showed Branson and his crewmates floating free of their seats and enjoying the sensation of weightlessness, not to mention the out-of-this-world view.

"To all you kids down there, I was once a child with a dream looking up to the stars," Branson said while his cremates cavorted in microgravity. "Now I'm an adult, in a spaceship with lots of other wonderful adults, looking down to our beautiful, beautiful Earth.

"To the next generation of dreamers: If we can do this, just imagine what you can do!" he said, before floating out of his seat. 

A few moments later, the spacecraft then began the long plunge back to Earth.

Using an innovation pioneered by aircraft designer Burt Rutan, Unity's wing and tail fins are designed to pivot upward 60 degrees once out of the atmosphere, giving the spaceplane the aerodynamics of a badminton shuttlecock, ensuring a belly-down re-entry.

Mackay and Masucci rotated the wing upward shortly after the rocket motor shut down and left it in the "feathered" orientation until it descended to around 55,000 feet when it was pivoted back parallel to the fuselage, turning Unity into a glider.

From there, the pilots guided the spaceplane through a spiraling descent, lined up on Spaceport America's 12,000-foot-long runway and settled to a picture-perfect landing, closing out a flight that lasted 59 minutes from takeoff to touchdown.

Mike Moses, Virgin president for space flight and safety, said an initial look at the data showed Unity came through its latest mission in great shape.

"We've looked at the data, we've done our quick engineering walk around (and) the ship looks pristine, no issues whatsoever," he said. "We'll take our time, do all the detailed inspections, and then we'll figure out when we're ready to go again. But ship looked perfect."

NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Space Force agree that space effectively begins at an altitude of 50 miles where the atmosphere is so thin that wings, rudders and other aerodynamic surfaces no longer have any effect.

As a result, Branson, Bennett and Bandla are now considered full-fledged Virgin astronauts, a distinction granted to Mackay, Masucci and Moses after earlier test flights.

Sunday's launching marked Unity's 22nd test flight, its fourth trip to space, Virgin's first with a six-person crew on board and the first for Branson, who beat Bezos into space by nine days.

Virgin Galactic and Bezos' Blue Origin both plan to launch passengers on flights to the edge of space and back and both are in the final stages of test flights before beginning commercial operations.

Branson effectively blindsided Bezos, scheduling Sunday's flight just ahead of the Amazon founder's, which had already been announced . But Branson insisted again Sunday that he doesn't view the competition as a "race" for space.

"I've said this so many times, it really wasn't a race," Branson said. "We're just delighted that everything went so fantastically well. We wish Jeff the absolute best and the people who are going up with him during his flight."

Virgin plans two more test flights, but company officials hope to begin launching paying customers, at $250,000 or more per seat, in early 2022. Flush with success Sunday, Branson announced a charity sweepstakes benefitting Space for Humanity, saying two winners will be selected to join one of the initial commercial flights.

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Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News.

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Branson Completes Virgin Galactic Flight, Aiming to Open Up Space Tourism

The successful trip was the first in a series to the edge of space and beyond by billionaire entrepreneurs that seek to make human spaceflight more routine.

Richard Branson Launches Into Space on Virgin Galactic Flight

The 70-year-old british billionaire and crew members of virgin galactic launched the commercial space plane unity from new mexico, reached the edge of space and landed safely back at the spaceport on sunday..

[crowd cheers] We are armed for release. Twenty seconds. Five, three, two, one. Release, release, release. Clean release. Ignition. Good rocket motor burn. There’s Mach 1 trimming now. Trim complete. Unity is pointed directly up. And that is a full duration burn, folks. We are headed to space. “To all you kids down there, I was once a child with a dream, looking up to the stars. Now, I’m an adult in a spaceship, with lots of other wonderful adults looking down to our beautiful, beautiful Earth. To the next generation of dreamers, if we can do this, just imagine what you can do. Aye!” ”Whew! Come on out, Richard.” They just had the ride of their lives. We are so excited for them to land and party the rest of the day like astronauts. All right, we have three landing gear down and locked. Over the threshold. Main gear touchdown. Can see Sir already celebrating inside there. Nose gear touchdown.

By Kenneth Chang

SPACEPORT AMERICA, N.M. — Soaring more than 50 miles into the hot, glaringly bright skies above New Mexico, Richard Branson at last fulfilled a dream that took decades to realize: He can now call himself an astronaut.

On Sunday morning, a small rocket plane operated by Virgin Galactic, which Mr. Branson founded in 2004, carried him and five other people to the edge of space and back.

More than an hour later, Mr. Branson took the stage to celebrate. “The whole thing was magical,” he said.

Later, during a news conference, Mr. Branson was still giddy, saying “I don’t know what’s going to come out of my mouth because I feel I’m still in space.”

Mr. Branson’s flight reinforces the hopes of space enthusiasts that routine travel to the final frontier may soon be available to private citizens, not just the professional astronauts of NASA and other space agencies. Another billionaire with his own rocket company — Jeff Bezos , the founder of Amazon — has plans to make a similar jaunt to the edge of space in nine days.

In each case, billionaire entrepreneurs are risking injury or death to fulfill their childhood aspirations — and advance the goal of making human spaceflight unexceptional.

“They’re putting their money where their mouth is, and they’re putting their body where their money is,” said Eric Anderson, chairman of Space Adventures Limited, a company that charters launches to orbit. “That’s impressive, frankly.”

At 8:40 a.m. Mountain time, a carrier aircraft, with the rocket plane, named V.S.S. Unity, tucked underneath, rose off the runway and headed to an altitude of about 45,000 feet. There, Unity was released, and a few moments later, its rocket motor ignited, accelerating the space plane on an upward arc.

Although Unity had made three previous trips to space, this was its first launch that resembled a full commercial flight of the sort that Virgin Galactic has promised to offer the general public, with two pilots — David Mackay and Michael Masucci — and four more crew members including Mr. Branson.

This flight resembled a party for Virgin Galactic and the nascent space tourism business. Guests included Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX; Michelle Lujan Grisham, the governor of New Mexico; and about 60 customers who have paid for future Virgin Galactic flights.

Stephen Colbert of the CBS program “The Late Show” introduced segments of the webcast. After the landing, the R&B singer Khalid performed a new song.

When the fuel was spent, Unity continued to coast upward to an altitude of 53.5 miles. The four people in back unbuckled and experienced about four minutes of floating before returning to their seats.

Mr. Branson was accompanied in the cabin by Beth Moses, the company’s chief astronaut instructor; Colin Bennett, lead operations engineer; and Sirisha Bandla, vice president of government affairs and research operations.

Mr. Bennett said that he was busy with tasks during the first part of the flight and then he heard Ms. Moses shouting, “Don’t forget to look out the window.”

He did. “It’s very Zen,” Mr. Bennett said of the view of Earth below. “What jumped out at me were the colors and just how far away it looked. It felt like we were just so far up there, and I was just mesmerized.”

Ms. Bandla’s role was to evaluate another market Virgin Galactic is targeting: scientists doing research that takes advantage of minutes of microgravity. She conducted an experiment from the University of Florida which looked at how plants react to the changing conditions — particularly the swings in gravity — during the flight, part of research that could aid growing food on future long-duration space missions.

As the space plane re-entered the atmosphere, the downward pull of gravity resumed. Unity glided to a landing back at the spaceport.

Michael Moses, president of Virgin Galactic, said the flight appeared to go flawlessly. “The ship looks pristine, no issues whatsoever,” Mr. Moses said.

For well over a decade, Mr. Branson, the irreverent 70-year-old British billionaire who runs a galaxy of Virgin companies, has repeatedly said he believed that commercial flights would soon begin. So did the 600 or so customers of Virgin Galactic who have paid $200,000 or more for their tickets to space and are still waiting. So did the taxpayers of New Mexico who paid $220 million to build Spaceport America, a futuristic vision in the middle of the desert, in order to attract Mr. Branson’s company.

After years and years of unmet promises, Virgin Galactic may begin flying the first paying passengers next year after two more test flights. But with tickets costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, this experience will, for now, remain out of financial reach for most people.

Founding a space exploration company was perhaps an unsurprising step for Mr. Branson, who has made a career — and a fortune estimated at $6 billion — building flashy upstart businesses that he promotes with a showman’s flair.

What became his Virgin business empire began with a small record shop in central London in the 1970s before Mr. Branson parlayed it into Virgin Records, the home of acts like the Sex Pistols, Peter Gabriel and more. In 1984, he was a co-founder of what became Virgin Atlantic.

The Virgin Group branched out into a mobile-phone service, a passenger railway and a line of hotels. Not all have performed flawlessly. Two of his airlines filed for insolvency during the pandemic last year, while few today remember his ventures into soft drinks , cosmetics or lingerie .

The spaceflight company was of a piece with Mr. Branson’s penchant for highflying pursuits like skydiving and hot-air ballooning.

Virgin Galactic joined the New York Stock Exchange in 2019 after merging with a publicly traded investment fund, giving it a potent source of new funds to compete with deep-pocket competitors — and publicity, with Mr. Branson marking its trading debut at the exchange in one of the company’s flight suits.

The Virgin Group retains a 24 percent stake in Virgin Galactic.

Virgin Galactic’s space plane is a scaled-up version of SpaceShipOne, which in 2004 captured the $10 million Ansari X Prize as the first reusable crewed spacecraft built by a nongovernmental organization to make it to space twice in two weeks.

Mr. Branson initially predicted commercial flights would begin by 2007. But development of the larger craft, SpaceShipTwo, stretched out.

The first SpaceShipTwo vehicle, V.S.S. Enterprise, crashed during a test flight in 2014, killing one of the pilots . Virgin Galactic was then grounded until Unity was completed a year and a half later.

In 2019, Virgin Galactic came close to another catastrophe when a seal on a rear horizontal stabilizer ruptured because a new thermal protection film had been improperly installed.

The mishap was revealed this year in the book “Test Gods: Virgin Galactic and the Making of a Modern Astronaut” by Nicholas Schmidle, a staff writer at The New Yorker. The book quotes Todd Ericson, then the vice president for safety and test at Virgin Galactic, saying, “I don’t know how we didn’t lose the vehicle and kill three people.”

Mr. Bezos’ flight is to take place about 200 miles to the southeast of Spaceport America in Van Horn, Texas, where his rocket company, Blue Origin, launches its New Shepard rocket and capsule.

Although Blue Origin has yet to fly any people on New Shepard, 15 successful uncrewed tests of the fully automated system convinced the company it would be safe to put Mr. Bezos on the first flight with people aboard.

He will be joined by his brother, Mark, and Mary Wallace Funk , an 82-year-old pilot. In the 1960s, she was among a group of women who passed the same rigorous criteria that NASA used for selecting astronauts, but the space agency at the time had no interest in selecting women as astronauts. A fourth unnamed passenger paid $28 million in an auction for one of the seats .

Neither Blue Origin nor Virgin Galactic flights go high enough or fast enough to enter orbit around Earth. Rather, these suborbital flights are more like giant roller coaster rides that allow passengers to float for a few minutes while admiring a view of Earth against the black backdrop of space.

Mr. Bezos’ company emphasized the rivalry with Virgin Galactic for space tourism passengers in a tweet on Friday . Blue Origin highlighted differences between its New Shepard rocket and Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo including the fact that New Shepard flies higher, above the altitude of 100 kilometers, or about 62 miles, that is often regarded as the boundary of space. However, the United States Air Force and the Federal Aviation Administration set the boundary at 50 miles.

The company also noted the size of the New Shepard capsule’s windows, and called Virgin Galactic’s Unity “a high-altitude plane” in contrast to New Shepard’s rocket.

Mr. Bezos on Sunday congratulated Mr. Branson and his fellow crew on their flight. “Can’t wait to join the club!” he said in an Instagram post .

At the news conference, Mr. Branson said, “It really wasn’t a race.” He added, “We wish Jeff the absolute best.”

Blue Origin has not yet announced a ticket price, and Virgin Galactic’s earlier quoted fare of $250,000 will probably rise. But on Sunday after his trip, Mr. Branson announced a sweepstakes that will give away two seats on a future Virgin Galactic flight .

Virgin Galactic is planning two more tests flight to conduct including one where scientists from the Italian Air Force will undertake science experiments before commencing commercial service.

The era of nonprofessional astronauts regularly heading to orbit may also begin in the coming year. Jared Isaacman , a 38-year-old billionaire, is essentially chartering a rocket and spacecraft from SpaceX for a three-day trip to orbit that is scheduled for September.

In December, Space Adventures has arranged for a Japanese fashion entrepreneur, Yusaku Maezawa , and Yozo Hirano, a production assistant, to launch on a Russian Soyuz rocket on a 12-day mission that will go to the International Space Station.

Another company, Axiom Space in Houston, is arranging a separate trip to the space station that will launch as soon as January.

The orbital trips are too expensive for anyone except the superwealthy — Axiom’s three customers are paying $55 million each — while suborbital flights might be affordable to those who are merely well off.

But how many people are willing to spend as much as some houses cost for a few minutes of space travel?

Carissa Christensen, founder and chief executive of Bryce Space and Technology, an aerospace consulting firm, thinks there will be plenty. “Based on previous ticket sales, surveys and interviews,” she said in an email, “we see strong demand signals for multiple hundreds of passengers a year at current prices, with potential for thousands if prices drop significantly.”

Mr. Anderson of Space Adventures is less certain.

Two decades ago, his company did sell suborbital flights including a ticket to Ms. Funk, who goes by Wally. “ Wally Funk was one of our first customers,” Mr. Anderson said. “That would have been like 1998.”

The ticket price then was $98,000.

At one point, about 200 people signed up, but none of the suborbital rocket companies were able to get their promised spacecraft close to flight. Space Adventures returned the money to Ms. Funk and the others.

Now this unproven suborbital market has whittled down to a battle of billionaires — Mr. Branson and Mr. Bezos.

“If anybody can make money and make the market work for suborbital, it’s Branson and Bezos,” Mr. Anderson said. “They have the reach and the cachet.”

Michael J. de la Merced and Neil Vigdor contributed reporting.

Kenneth Chang has been at The Times since 2000, writing about physics, geology, chemistry, and the planets. Before becoming a science writer, he was a graduate student whose research involved the control of chaos. More about Kenneth Chang

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Richard branson successfully completes space flight with virgin galactic crew.

Branson became the first person to blast off in his own spaceship, beating Bezos by nine days.

By The Associated Press

The Associated Press

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Swashbuckling entrepreneur Richard Branson hurtled into space aboard his own winged rocket ship Sunday in his boldest adventure yet, beating out fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos.

The nearly 71-year-old Branson and five crewmates from his Virgin Galactic space tourism company reached an altitude of about 53 miles (88 kilometers) over the New Mexico desert — enough to experience three to four minutes of weightlessness and see the curvature of the Earth — and then safely glided back home to a runway landing.

“Seventeen years of hard work to get us this far,” a jubilant Branson said as he congratulated his team on the trip back aboard the sleek white space plane, named Unity.

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He pumped both fists as he stepped out onto the runway and ran toward his family, bear-hugging his wife and children and scooping up his three grandchildren in his arms.

The brief, up-and-down flight — the rocket ship’s portion took only about 15 minutes, or about as long as Alan Shepard’s first U.S. spaceflight in 1961 — was intended as a confidence-boosting plug for Virgin Galactic, which plans to start taking paying customers on joyrides next year.

Branson became the first person to blast off in his own spaceship, beating Bezos by nine days. He also became only the second septuagenarian to depart for space. (Astronaut John Glenn flew on the shuttle at age 77 in 1998.)

“It’s a beautiful day to go to space,” Branson tweeted in the morning, posting a photo of himself with fellow billionaire and space-tourism rival Elon Musk.

With about 500 people watching, including Branson’s family, a twin-fuselage aircraft with his space plane attached underneath took off in the first stage of the flight. The space plane then detached from the mother ship at an altitude of about 8 1/2 miles (13 kilometers) and fired its engine, reaching more than Mach 3, or three times the speed of sound, as it pierced the edge of space.

The crowd cheered and yelled as it touched down on the runway. Some spectators jumped into the air. Others embraced and shared hugs.

“That was an amazing accomplishment,” former Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, a one-time commander of the International Space Station, said from the sidelines. “I’m just so delighted at what this open door is going to lead to now. It’s a great moment.”

Virgin Galactic conducted three previous test flights into space with crews of just two or three.

The flamboyant, London-born founder of Virgin Atlantic Airways wasn’t supposed to fly until later this summer. But he assigned himself to an earlier flight after Bezos announced plans to ride his own rocket into space from Texas on July 20, the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Branson denied he was trying to outdo Bezos.

Before climbing aboard, Branson, who has kite-surfed the English Channel and attempted to circle the world in a hot-air balloon, signed the astronaut log book and wisecracked: “The name’s Branson. Sir Richard Branson. Astronaut Double-oh one. License to thrill.”

One of Branson’s chief rivals in the space-tourism race among the world’s richest men, SpaceX’s Elon Musk, arrived in New Mexico to witness the flight, wishing Branson via Twitter, “Godspeed!”

Bezos likewise sent his wishes for a safe and successful flight, though he also took to Twitter to enumerate the ways in which be believes his company’s rides will be better.

Bezos’ Blue Origin company intends to send tourists past the so-called Karman line 62 miles (100 kilometers) above Earth, which is is recognized by international aviation and aerospace federations as the threshold of space.

But NASA, the Air Force, the Federal Aviation Administration and some astrophysicists consider the boundary between the atmosphere and space to begin 50 miles (80 kilometers) up.

The risks to Branson and his crew were underscored in 2007, when a rocket motor test in California’s Mojave Desert left three workers dead, and in 2014, when a Virgin Galactic rocket plane broke apart during a test flight, killing one pilot and seriously injuring the other.

Ever the showman, Branson insisted on a global livestream of the Sunday morning flight and invited celebrities and former space station astronauts to the company’s Spaceport America base in New Mexico.

R&B singer Khalid was on hand to perform his new single “New Normal” — a nod to the dawning of space tourism — while CBS “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert served as the event’s master of ceremonies.

Virgin Galactic already has more than 600 reservations from would-be space tourists, with tickets initially costing $250,000 apiece. Blue Origin is waiting for Bezos’ flight before announcing its ticket prices.

Kerianne Flynn, who signed up in 2011 to fly with Virgin Galactic, had butterflies ahead of the launch Sunday.

“I think there’s going to be nothing like going up there and looking back down on the Earth, which is what I think I’m most excited about,” she said. She added: “Hopefully the next generations will be able to explore what’s up there,” she said.

Musk’s SpaceX, which is already launching astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA and is building moon and Mars ships, is also competing for space tourism dollars. But its capsules will do more than make brief, up-and-down forays; they will go into orbit around the Earth, with seats costing well into the millions. Its first private flight is set for September.

Musk himself has not committed to going into space anytime soon.

“It’s a whole new horizon out there, new opportunities, new destinations,” said former NASA astronaut Chris Ferguson, who commanded the last shuttle flight 10 years ago. He now works for Boeing, which is test-flying its own space capsule.

“This is really sort of like the advent of commercial air travel, only 100 years later,” Ferguson added. “There’s a lot waiting in the wings.”

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Virgin Galactic’s first space tourists finally soar, an Olympian and a mother-daughter duo

Virgin Galactic rocketed to the edge of space with its first tourists Thursday, including a former British Olympian who bought his ticket 18 years ago and a mother-daughter duo from the Caribbean. (August 10) (Production Marissa Duhaney)

This photo provided Virgin Galactic shows passengers during Virgin Galactic’s first space tourism flight on Thursday Aug. 10, 2023. Virgin Galactic rocketed to the edge of space with its first tourists Thursday. The space plane glided back to a runway landing at Spaceport America in the New Mexico desert, after a brief flight that gave passengers a few minutes of weightlessness.(Virgin Galactic via AP)

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Virgin Galactic’s rocket-powered plane Unity 22, lands after a short flight to the edge of space at Spaceport America, near Truth or Consequences, N.M., Thursday, Aug. 10, 2023. Virgin Galactic is taking its first space tourists on a long-delayed rocket ship ride. (AP Photo/Andrés Leighton)

Virgin Galactic’s rocket-powered plane Unity 22, left, flies past its mothership Eve on its way to the edge of space after taking off from Spaceport America, near Truth or Consequences, N.M., Thursday, Aug. 10, 2023. Virgin Galactic is taking its first space tourists on a long-delayed rocket ship ride. (AP Photo/Andrés Leighton)

Virgin Galactic’s mothership Eve, carrying the rocket-powered plane Unity 22, flies after taking off from Spaceport America, near Truth or Consequences, N.M., Thursday, Aug. 10, 2023. Virgin Galactic is taking its first space tourists on a long-delayed rocket ship ride. (AP Photo/Andrés Leighton)

Space tourists, from left, Anastatia Mayers, Jon Goodwin and Keisha Schahaff pose for photos before boarding their Virgin Galactic flight at Spaceport America, near Truth or Consequences, N.M., Thursday, Aug. 10, 2023. Virgin Galactic is taking its first space tourists on a long-delayed rocket ship ride. (AP Photo/Andrés Leighton)

Guests wave flags of Antigua and Barbuda while watching the return of Virgin Galactic’s rocket-powered plane Unity at Spaceport America, near Truth or Consequences, N.M., Thursday, Aug. 10, 2023. Virgin Galactic is taking its first space tourists on a long-delayed rocket ship ride, including a British former Olympian and a mother-daughter duo from the Caribbean island. (AP Photo/Andrés Leighton)

Space tourists, from left, Anastatia Mayers, Jon Goodwin and Keisha Schahaff walk to the tarmac before boarding their Virgin Galactic flight at Spaceport America, near Truth or Consequences, N.M., Thursday, Aug. 10, 2023. Virgin Galactic is taking its first space tourists on a long-delayed rocket ship ride. (AP Photo/Andrés Leighton)

Virgin Galactic’s mothership Eve, carrying the rocket-powered plane Unity 22, takes off from Spaceport America, near Truth or Consequences, N.M., Thursday, Aug. 10, 2023. Virgin Galactic is taking its first space tourists on a long-delayed rocket ship ride. (AP Photo/Andrés Leighton)

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M. (AP) — Virgin Galactic rocketed to the edge of space with its first tourists Thursday, a former British Olympian who bought his ticket 18 years ago and a mother-daughter duo from the Caribbean.

The space plane glided back to a runway landing at Spaceport America in the New Mexico desert, after a brief flight that gave passengers a few minutes of weightlessness.

This first private customer flight had been delayed for years; its success means Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic can now start offering monthly rides, joining Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the space tourism business.

“That was by far the most awesome thing I’ve ever done in my life,” said Jon Goodwin, who competed in canoeing in the 1972 Olympics.

Goodwin, 80, was among the first to buy a Virgin Galactic ticket in 2005 and feared, after later being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, that he’d be out of luck. Since then he’s climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and cycled back down, and said he hopes his spaceflight shows others with Parkinson’s and other illnesses that ”it doesn’t stop you doing things.”

Ticket prices were $200,000 when Goodwin signed up. The cost is now $450,000.

He was joined on the flight by sweepstakes winner Keisha Schahaff, 46, a health coach from Antigua, and her daughter, Anastatia Mayers, 18, a student at Scotland’s University of Aberdeen. They high-fived and pumped their fists as the spaceport crowd cheered their return.

“A childhood dream has come true,” said Schahaff, who took pink Antiguan sand up with her. Added her daughter: “I have no words. The only thought I had the whole time was ‘Wow!’ ”

With the company’s astronaut trainer and one of the two pilots, it marked the first time women outnumbered men on a spaceflight, four to two.

Cheers erupted from families and friends watching below when the craft’s rocket motor fired after it was released from the twin-fuselage aircraft that had carried it aloft. The rocket ship’s portion of the flight lasted about 15 minutes and it reached 55 miles (88 kilometers) high.

It was Virgin Galactic’s seventh trip to space since 2018, but the first with a ticket-holder. Branson, the company’s founder, hopped on board for the first full-size crew ride in 2021. Italian military and government researchers soared in June on the first commercial flight. About 800 people are currently on Virgin Galactic’s waiting list, according to the company.

In contrast to Virgin Galactic’s plane-launched rocket ship, the capsules used by SpaceX and Blue Origin are fully automated and parachute back down.

Like Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin aims for the fringes of space, quick ups-and-downs from West Texas. Blue Origin has launched 31 people so far, but flights are on hold following a rocket crash last fall. The capsule, carrying experiments but no passengers, landed intact.

SpaceX, is the only private company flying customers all the way to orbit, charging a much heftier price, too: tens of millions of dollars per seat. It’s already flown three private crews. NASA is its biggest customer, relying on SpaceX to ferry its astronauts to and from the International Space Station. since 2020.

People have been taking on adventure travel for decades, the risks underscored by the recent implosion of the Titan submersible that killed five passengers on their way down to view the Titanic wreckage. Virgin Galactic suffered its own casualty in 2014 when its rocket plane broke apart during a test flight, killing one pilot. Yet space tourists are still lining up, ever since the first one rocketed into orbit in 2001 with the Russians.

Branson, who lives in the British Virgin Islands, watched Thursday’s flight from a party in Antigua. He was joined by the country’s prime minister, as well as Schahaff’s mother and other relatives.

“Welcome to the club,” he told the new spacefliers via X, formerly Twitter.

Several months ago, Branson held a virtual lottery to establish a pecking order for the company’s first 50 customers — dubbed the Founding Astronauts. Virgin Galactic said the group agreed Goodwin would go first, given his age and his Parkinson’s.

This story has been updated to correct introductory price to $200,000, not $250,000.

Dunn reported from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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Virgin Galactic successfully flies tourists to space for first time

Six individuals were aboard VSS Unity space plane, including first mother-daughter duo to venture to space together

Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity, the reusable rocket-powered space plane carrying the company’s first crew of tourists to space, successfully launched and landed on Thursday.

The mission, known as Galactic 02, took off shortly after 11am ET from Spaceport America in New Mexico .

Aboard the spacecraft were six individuals total – the space plane’s commander and former Nasa astronaut CJ Sturckow, the pilot Kelly Latimer, as well as Beth Moses, Virgin Galactic’s chief astronaut instructor who trained the crew before the flight.

The spacecraft also carryied three private passengers, including the health and wellness coach Keisha Schahaff and her 18-year-old daughter, Anastasia Mayers, both of whom are Antiguan.

According to Space.com, Schahaff won her seat onboard the Galactic 02 as part of a fundraising competition by Space for Humanity, a non-profit organization seeking to democratize space travel. Mayers is studying philosophy and physics at Aberdeen University in Scotland. Together, Schahaff and Mayers are the first mother-daughter duo to venture to space together.

“When I was two years old, just looking up to the skies, I thought, ‘How can I get there?’ But, being from the Caribbean, I didn’t see how something like this would be possible. The fact that I am here, the first to travel to space from Antigua, shows that space really is becoming more accessible,” Schahaff said in a statement last month.

The mission also marks the most women flown in a single mission to space.

Onboard the flight was also the former Olympian Jon Goodwin, who participated in the 1972 Olympics in Munich as a canoeist. At 80 years old, Goodwin was the second passenger with Parkinson’s disease and the first Olympian to embark on a trip to space.

“When I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2014, I was determined not to let it stand in the way of living life to the fullest. And now for me to go to space with Parkinson’s is completely magical,” he said in a news release. “I hope this inspires all others facing adversity and shows them that challenges don’t have to inhibit or stop them from pursuing their dreams,” Goodwin said .

Galactic 02 is a suborbital flight. However, despite VSS Unity not reaching orbit, the trajectory allows passengers to experience several minutes of weightlessness at an altitude high enough for them to see the Earth’s curvature, Space.com explains .

Following liftoff, Virgin Galactic’s carrier plane VMS Eve transported VSS Unity to an altitude of about 44,300ft. Eve then dropped Unity, which then fired its own rocket motor and ascended to suborbital space. Passengers onboard experienced approximately 3Gs.

Live footage inside the spacecraft showed the passengers unstrapping themselves from their seats and peering out down to Earth through the windows as they floated throughout the spacecraft.

In a press conference after the flight, Schahaff recounted her experience, saying: “Looking at Earth was the most amazing … It was so comfortable. It really was the best ride ever. I would love to do this again.

“This experience has given me this beautiful feeling that if I can do this, I can do anything,” she added.

Mayers, who is the second-youngest person to go to space, said: “I was shocked at the things that you feel. You are so much more connected to everything than you would expect to be. You felt like a part of the team, a part of the ship, a part of the universe, a part of Earth. It was incredible and I’m still starstruck.”

To Goodwin, the experience was far more dramatic than he expected.

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“The pure acceleration, Mach 3 [2,301mph, 3,378 ft per second] in eight and a half seconds was completely surreal. The re-entry was a lot more dramatic than I imagined it would be. In fact, I would have said it was out of control if I didn’t know anything different,” he said.

“It was a completely surreal experience. But the most impressive thing was looking at Earth from space. The pure clarity was very moving, quite surreal. It was without a doubt the most exciting day of my life,” he added.

In a statement released following the flight, Sturckow said: “It is a surreal and humbling experience to have flown Unity today. The wonder and excitement of spaceflight never loses its magic.”

Latimer echoed similar sentiments, saying: “In my entire career, from the Air Force Academy to being a test pilot for Nasa, nothing tops what I have just experienced at the controls of VSS Unity. Going to space today fulfilled an ambition I’ve had since I was a child.”

The Virgin Galactic founder, Sir Richard Branson, also hailed the flight, tweeting: “Today we flew three incredible private passengers to space: Keisha Schahaff, Anastatia Mayers and Jon Goodwin. Congratulations Virgin Galactic commercial astronauts 011, 012 and 013 – welcome to the club!”

Despite Galactic 02 being Virgin Galactic’s second commercial spaceflight mission, it is the first flight to carry private customers. In June, Galactic 01 carried three crew members from the Italian air force and the National Research Council of Italy.

In July 2021, Branson traveled to space and back onboard the VSS Unity, a mission that marked the billionaire’s entry into the new era of space tourism helmed by other billionaires including the SpaceX founder, Elon Musk, and Blue Origin founder, Jeff Bezos.

According to Virgin Galactic, the company has already booked a backlog of about 800 customers. Tickets have ranged from $250,000 to $450,000.

Galactic 03, the company’s third commercial spaceflight, is planned for September.

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In photos: Virgin Galactic's 1st fully crewed spaceflight with billionaire Richard Branson

Richard Branson is going to space

The space tourism company Virgin Galactic successfully launched its founder Richard Branson and five other crewmembers into suborbital space on July 11, 2021 in a milestone mission that marked the first fully crewed flight of its VSS Unity space plane . 

See photos of the mission preparations in this Space.com gallery as it happened in this exciting gallery. 

Main story: Virgin Galactic launches Richard Branson to space in 1st fully crewed flight of VSS Unity

The crew of the fourth spaceflight of Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity spaceliner — from left, Colin Bennet, Richard Branson, Beth Moses and Sirisha Bandla — share a moment before their launch on July 11, 2021.

Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity spaceliner takes off beneath the wings of its carrier plane, VMS Eve, from Spaceport America in New Mexico on July 11, 2021.

VSS Unity separates from its carrier plane, VMS Eve, on July 11, 2021.

An up-close look at VSS Unity's rocket motor in action on July 11, 2021.

VSS Unity powers its way to suborbital space on July 11, 2021.

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity launches billionaire Richard Branson and a crew of five others to suborbital space and back in a flight from Spaceport America, New Mexico on July 11, 2021.

A view of the Earth and the feathered tail of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity during the Unity 22 flight on July 11, 2021.

Virgin Group founder Richard Branson in the cabin of VSS Unity during the space plane's ascent on July 11, 2021.

Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson soars like Superman while in weightlessness during his Unity 22 launch on the SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity on July 11, 2021.

Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson (foreground) and his crew float in weightlessness aboard the VSS Unity spacecraft during their suborbital Unity 22 spaceflight on July 11, 2021.

Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson (left) and his fellow crewmates in the cabin of VSS Unity during its fourth spaceflight, on July 11, 2021.

A view of the Earth from Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity during the Unity 22 flight on July 11, 2021.

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity is seen during the ferry flight up to launch altitude during the Unity 22 flight on July 11, 2021.

Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity touches down after completing its fourth flight to suborbital space, on July 11, 2021.

Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson (right) and the crew of Unity 22 celebrate their successful suborbital launch over Spaceport America, New Mexico after landing on July 11, 2021. Branson's crewmates are: (from left) Colin Bennett, Beth Moses and Sirisha Bandla, all Virgin Galactic employees.

Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson displays the headshot of comedian Stephen Colbert that he carried to space on the Unity 22 suborbital mission on Sunday, July 11, 2021. 

Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson holds up a photo of him with his children that he flew to space inside his flight suit pocket aboard the Unity 22 suborbital mission flown from Spaceport America in New Mexico on July 11, 2021.

Beth Moses, Virgin Galactic's chief astronaut instructor, places her hand over the inner pocket where she had the flowers she flew into space on the Unity 22 mission on July 11, 2021.

Virgin Galactic lead operations engineer Colin Bennett holds up the University of Illinois pennant that he carried into space for his alma mater on board the Unity 22 mission, July 11, 2021. 

Spaceport America

The Virgin Galactic crew will fly to space in the SpaceShipTwo vehicle named VSS Unity, which will first ascend into the stratosphere tucked beneath the wings of a carrier plane called WhiteKnightTwo.

In this photo, Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity spacecraft and WhiteKnightTwo are seen on the runway at Spaceport America , the company's new space tourism facility in New Mexico.

Photos: Take a tour of Spaceport America

Meet the Unity 22 crew

Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson (third from right) will launch on the company's first fully crewed flight on July 11, 2021, as part of a six-person mission named "Unity 22." The crewmembers are, from left: 

• Dave Mackay , chief pilot
• Colin Bennett , lead operations engineer
• Beth Moses , chief astronaut instructor
• Richard Branson , "Astronaut 001"
• Sirisha Bandla , vice president of government affairs and research operations
• Michael "Sooch" Masucci , pilot

Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson was Astronaut 001 for the Unity 22 flight..

Beth Moses is the chief astronaut instructor at Virgin Galactic. She has previously flown to space once, on a SpaceShipTwo test flight in 2019. The Unity 22 mission will be her second spaceflight. 

"Moses will serve as cabin lead and test director on Unity 22, overseeing the safe and efficient execution of the test flight objectives," Virgin Galactic officials wrote in a mission description.

Dave Mackay

Dave Mackay is Virgin Galactic's chief pilot, and he will be flying to space for his fourth time on the Unity 22 mission. Mackay is a former military test pilot and flew Boeing 747 airplanes for Virgin Atlantic before joining Virgin Galactic in 2009.

Michael Masucci

Michael "Sooch" Masucci will serve as a second pilot on VSS Unity for the Unity 22 mission. Masucci has flown the craft to space once before, on the February 2019 test flight with fellow pilot Dave Mackay and passenger Beth Moses. 

Colin Bennett

Also on board the Unity 22 mission will be Virgin Galactic Lead Operations Engineer Colin Bennett, who will evaluate cabin equipment and procedures during throughout the flight.

Sirisha Bandla

Also flying on the Unity 22 mission will be Sirisha Bandla, vice president of government affairs and research operations at Virgin Galactic. 

"Bandla will be evaluating the human-tended research experience, using an experiment from the University of Florida that requires several handheld fixation tubes that will be activated at various points in the flight profile," Virgin Galactic said in a mission description.

Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity space plane is pictured on the runway at Spaceport America, after completing its first glide flight over New Mexico, on May 1, 2020. 

Related: How Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo passenger space plane works (infographic)

Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft, named VMS Eve (Virgin Mother Ship Eve), will carry the VSS Unity space plane to an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15.5 kilometers). The space plane will then separate from its carrier plane and fire its engines for about one minute to accelerate into suborbital space, reaching an altitude of at least 50 miles (80 km).

Related: Will Richard Branson actually reach space on Virgin Galactic's 1st fully crewed launch?

The drop-off

This screenshot from a Virgin Galactic video shows the company's VSS Unity vehicle firing up its rocket motor during its third test flight to suborbital space, on May 22, 2021.

Related: Ride along with Virgin Galactic's 1st launch from Spaceport America in this awesome video

The view from space

This photo shows the view from Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity space plane during its first piloted test flight from Spaceport America , which took place on May 22, 2021. It was the third crewed test flight of VSS Unity. 

Virgin Galactic's 1st test passenger

Astronaut trainer Beth Moses looks out the window of VSS Unity during a test flight on Feb. 22, 2019. It was the first time that a passenger flew on the space plane; pilots Dave Mackay and Michael "Sooch" Masucci flew in the cockpit. 

Full story: Virgin Galactic's 1st test passenger felt Like Spider-Man after launch

Inside VSS Unity

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo interior features six sleek passenger seats, a wealth of windows and room to float about the cabin. The crew will experience about four minutes of weightlessness during the suborbital spaceflight. 

Full story: Virgin Galactic unveils sleek interior of SpaceShipTwo spaceliner (photos, video)

Space.com is the premier source of space exploration, innovation and astronomy news, chronicling (and celebrating) humanity's ongoing expansion across the final frontier. Originally founded in 1999, Space.com is, and always has been, the passion of writers and editors who are space fans and also trained journalists. Our current news team consists of Editor-in-Chief Tariq Malik; Editor Hanneke Weitering, Senior Space Writer Mike Wall; Senior Writer Meghan Bartels; Senior Writer Chelsea Gohd, Senior Writer Tereza Pultarova and Staff Writer Alexander Cox, focusing on e-commerce. Senior Producer Steve Spaleta oversees our space videos, with Diana Whitcroft as our Social Media Editor. 

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Bezos Vs. Branson: The Billionaire Space Race Lifts Off

Laurel Wamsley

Richard Branson, seen here in 2019, will head to space on his company Virgin Galactic's Unity 22 mission. Don Emmert/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Richard Branson, seen here in 2019, will head to space on his company Virgin Galactic's Unity 22 mission.

Richard Branson, the British billionaire, plans to blast into space on Sunday from New Mexico aboard a rocket made by his company Virgin Galactic.

Nine days later , Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is scheduled to rocket into space from West Texas in a capsule made by his company Blue Origin.

The high-profile launches are the latest developments in efforts to kick-start the era of space tourism, and it's hoped they will instill confidence in the new spacecrafts — and to satisfy childhood yearnings.

"I was a kid once, standing with my dad and my sister, looking up at the moon, being told that Buzz and Neil were standing on it," Branson told NPR's Morning Edition this week, referring to the Apollo 11 astronauts . "And I just thought, I've got to go to space one day."

3 days until #Unity22 ! Come inside the hangar for pre-flight preparations as our spaceship VSS Unity joins forces with our mothership VMS Eve. Watch the launch live this Sunday at 6 am PT | 9 am ET | 2 pm BST. https://t.co/WEBNyUYpRQ pic.twitter.com/xakebHTN5T — Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) July 8, 2021

Bezos, likewise, says he's dreamed of traveling to space since he was 5.

Branson took his first steps toward realizing his dreams in 2004, when he registered the name Virgin Galactic with the idea of making space travel possible for his generation. Now, his efforts are taking flight.

"I feel like a kid myself," Branson said.

The Virgin Galactic project pushed through tragedy

Branson thought he might be able to accomplish his goal in six or seven years. "But space is very difficult. Rocket science is very difficult. And it's taken 17 years of brave test pilots and 800 engineers to get to a really safe system to take us into space and then, early next year, to start taking members of the public into space," he told NPR.

The Virgin Galactic Unity 22 mission will have two pilots and four "mission specialists" in the cabin, including Branson, whose official role is described as " testing the private astronaut experience ."

Virgin Galactic Plans July 11 Test Flight Of Its Winged Rocket Ship

In 2014, a pilot on a Virgin Galactic test flight was killed when it crashed in California's Mojave Desert . An investigation found that pilot error and design problems were to blame in the crash.

But Branson didn't end the company's drive to space.

"Obviously, our team have made absolutely certain that something like that could never happen again," he said. "At the time, you know, we had to decide. Do we press on or don't we? I sat down with 800 engineers. Because we could rectify that particular issue, we pressed on."

Virgin Galactic's SpaceshipTwo is seen here in 2018. Gene Blevins/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Virgin Galactic's SpaceshipTwo is seen here in 2018.

Branson will fly earlier than Bezos, but won't soar as high

Jeff Bezos announced last month that he would go to space on July 20, along with his brother and two other people, on his company's New Shepard.

One of those passengers will be Wally Funk . She is one of the last surviving members of a group of female pilots who, in 1961, were part of a test to see whether women were fit for space travel. They passed many of the same tests as the male pilots, and became known as the Mercury 13 – but NASA never sent them to space.

Wally Funk, A Lifelong Aspiring Astronaut, Will Finally Head To Space At 82

Branson had been expected to take a Virgin Galactic flight later this year, but after Bezos said he was blasting off, Branson leapfrogged to an earlier launch date.

Unlike a traditional launch, Virgin Galactic uses a special "mothership" to fly the rocket plane up to approximately 50,000 feet. The rocket-powered plane will then be dropped from the mothership, light its rocket and zoom to the edge of earth's atmosphere — about 50 miles in altitude.

The crew will experience a few minutes of weightlessness before the plane plummets back to earth and lands in New Mexico.

Jeff Bezos Is Going To Space (For A Few Minutes)

There is debate over whether the Virgin Galactic flight path will actually reach "space." Due to its design, the top altitude of Branson's craft falls short of the Karman line recognized internationally as the altitude at which space begins – about 62 miles above sea level (although that definition itself is also under review ).

Bezos' Blue Origins flight will go above that line, briefly.

The company's Twitter account posted less-than-subtle statements on Friday about the elevation differential.

"From the beginning, New Shepard was designed to fly above the Karman line so none of our astronauts have an asterisk next to their name," Blue Origin tweeted .

Hundreds are signed up for the chance at space travel

NASA ended its shuttle program 10 years ago , and hoped that private companies would step into the void. And they have. Elon Musk's SpaceX regularly carries astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

More than 700 people have already signed up for commercial passenger flights that Virgin Galactic says will start in 2022 , at a price between $200,000 and $250,000 each. Due to the numbers, the company stopped taking reservations. Branson believes the demand will be stratospheric after Sunday's flight.

"When we open up after our trip, I think we're going to be deluged with people wanting to go to space," he said.

An 11-Minute Flight To Space Was Just Auctioned For $28 Million

NASA's final shuttle commander, Chris Ferguson, said that he's impressed Branson and Bezos are going on the flights ahead of their customers.

"That's one surefire way to show confidence in your product is to get on it," Ferguson said Thursday, according to The Associated Press. "I'm sure that this was not a decision made lightly. I wish them both well. I think it's great."

NPR's Russell Lewis contributed to this report.

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The Red Warning Light on Richard Branson’s Space Flight

By Nicholas Schmidle

On July 11th, nearly a minute into the rocket trip carrying Richard Branson , the British billionaire, to space, a yellow caution light appeared on the ship’s console. The craft was about twenty miles in the air above the White Sands Missile Range, in New Mexico, and climbing, travelling more than twice the speed of sound. But it was veering off course, and the light was a warning to the pilots that their flight path was too shallow and the nose of the ship was insufficiently vertical. If they didn’t fix it, they risked a perilous emergency landing in the desert on their descent.

Riding rockets is dangerous stuff. Around 1.4 per cent of Russian, Soviet, and American crewed spaceflight missions have resulted in fatalities. The foremost commercial space companies—Branson’s Virgin Galactic, Elon Musk’s SpaceX, and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin—must, over the coming years, bring that number down. Their profits depend on making frequent and safe human spaceflight a reality. “A private program can’t afford to lose anybody,” Branson has said.

And yet, perhaps more than any of its competitors, Branson’s company is already hard at work fashioning its identity as a luxury life-style brand. Virgin Galactic is marketing its space-tourism business but for the time being remains an experimental flight-test program. I’ve been covering this company for almost seven years, reporting on its triumphs and tragedies, and on the disconnect between its lofty rhetoric (“Virgin Galactic’s mission is to democratize space,” Branson has said) and its supersonic risks. This account was informed by discussions with eight people knowledgeable about the program.

Virgin Galactic’s space vehicle is unique among its competitors. Whereas SpaceX and Blue Origin operate traditional, vertical-launch rockets that are automated by engineers, Virgin Galactic uses a piloted, winged rocket ship. Every test flight is crewed, which makes each one a matter of life and death. (SpaceX, on the other hand, completed scores of launches before it flew with a human onboard; Blue Origin completed more than a dozen launches before it did the same.)

The success of Virgin Galactic’s program, therefore, will ultimately depend on its pilots, high-calibre but nonetheless fallible, making the right decisions and adjustments in specific moments—like when a yellow caution light comes on. Alerts on the console can be triggered by any number of issues. On the July 11th flight, with Branson on board, it was a trajectory problem, or what’s known as the “entry glide cone.” The ship uses rocket power to get into space, but glides back to Earth and lands on a runway, like the space shuttle would do. This method, mimicking water circling a drain, enables a controlled descent. But the ship must begin its descent within a specified, imaginary “cone” to have enough glide energy to reach its destination. The pilots basically weren’t flying steeply enough.

Not only was the ship’s trajectory endangering the mission, it was also imperilling the ship’s chances of staying inside its mandated airspace. The Federal Aviation Administration regulates the private space industry and sets aside airspace for each mission, seeking to prevent collisions with general air traffic, including commercial airliners, and to limit civilian casualties in the event of an accident. The regulator uses formulas detailed in a hundred-and-twenty-one-page document—including an equation for calculating expected casualties—to assess the safety of a given spaceflight. According to the F.A.A., an acceptable Ec, as the equation is called, involves no more than one expected casualty per ten thousand missions. The agency designates airspace for flights with that equation in mind.

The rocket motor on Virgin Galactic’s ship is programmed to burn for a minute. On July 11th, it had a few more seconds to go when a red light also appeared on the console: an entry glide-cone warning. This was a big deal. I once sat in on a meeting, in 2015, during which the pilots on the July 11th mission—Dave Mackay, a former Virgin Atlantic pilot and veteran of the U.K.’s Royal Air Force, and Mike Masucci, a retired Air Force pilot—and others discussed procedures for responding to an entry glide-cone warning. C. J. Sturckow, a former marine and NASA astronaut, said that a yellow light should “scare the shit out of you,” because “when it turns red it’s gonna be too late”; Masucci was less concerned about the yellow light but said, “Red should scare the crap out of you.” Based on pilot procedures, Mackay and Masucci had basically two options: implement immediate corrective action, or abort the rocket motor. According to multiple sources in the company, the safest way to respond to the warning would have been to abort. (A Virgin Galactic spokesperson disputed this contention.)

Aborting at that moment, however, would have dashed Branson’s hopes of beating his rival Bezos, whose flight was scheduled for later in the month, into space. Mackay and Masucci did not abort. Whether or not their decision was motivated by programmatic pressures and the hopes of their billionaire bankroller sitting in the back remains unclear. Virgin Galactic officials told me that the firm’s top priority is the safety of its crew and passengers. Branson, however, is known for his flamboyance and showmanship. On the morning of the flight, Branson, an outspoken environmentalist, appeared on the “livestream” arriving at the spaceport on a bicycle. But this turned out to be false: Branson did not pedal to work that day; the bike ride was filmed a week earlier and then made to look like it happened that morning. When Reuters called out the company, an anonymous official said, “We regret the error and any confusion it may have caused.”

Although Mackay and Masucci attempted to address their trajectory problem, it wasn’t enough. And now they were accelerating to Mach 3, with a red light glowing in the cockpit. Fortunately for Branson and the three other crew members in the back, the pilots got the ship into space and landed safely. But data retrieved from Flightradar24 shows the vehicle flying outside its designated airspace. An F.A.A. spokesperson confirmed that Virgin Galactic “deviated from its Air Traffic Control clearance” and that an “investigation is ongoing.” A Virgin Galactic spokesperson acknowledged that the company did not initially notify the F.A.A. and that the craft flew outside its designated airspace for a minute and forty-one seconds—flights generally last about fifteen minutes—but said that the company was working with the F.A.A. to update procedures for alerting the agency.

Virgin Galactic has faced close calls and calamities in the past. In 2011, with the company contracting its flight-test program to Scaled Composites, a boutique aviation firm, a crash was narrowly averted when the spaceship got into an inverted spin. And in 2014 an accident killed one pilot, badly injured another, and left their spaceship in ruins. Two recent episodes are perhaps more revealing.

In July, 2018, Mackay and Masucci were conducting a test flight thirty miles above the Earth when the ship got away from them, spinning and tumbling in the thin air. Virgin Galactic’s lead test pilot and flight-test director, Mark Stucky, was monitoring the flight from mission control, fearful that if Mackay and Masucci didn’t steady the ship soon, their off-kilter descent could seriously damage the vehicle and put the pilots in danger. They landed safely, though a post-flight inspection exposed manufacturing defects that required months of repairs.

Seven months later, in February, 2019, Mackay and Masucci flew again, this time with an engineer in the back. They reached space, as planned, but the ship sustained significant damage when a bond holding the trailing edge of the horizontal stabilizer came unglued. “I don’t know how we didn’t lose the vehicle and kill three people,” Todd Ericson, a retired Air Force Colonel and Virgin Galactic’s then vice-president of safety and test, told me in a 2020 interview. When, in Ericson’s view, management tried to keep the problem quiet, his concerns grew. “This should have been a come-to-Jesus moment, not the kind of thing you brush under the rug,” he said. The maintenance crew had supposedly inspected the ship and verified that it was safe to fly when it demonstrably was not, and Ericson was worried that the company was treating an organizational failure as an isolated incident. (The company disputed this account.) Eventually, Ericson shared his concerns with members of the board, which hired a retired Boeing executive to conduct a safety review of the flight-test program. Ericson resigned from his post in frustration, disillusioned by the company’s safety culture. (In a recent e-mail exchange, Ericson declined to comment on the company’s safety practices, or on his resignation.)

The former Boeing executive spent weeks interviewing pilots and engineers, before filing a forty-page report with observations and recommendations. Virgin Galactic, citing confidentiality agreements, declined numerous requests to share the document with me but said that it concluded it was safe to fly. Stucky, the flight-test director, told me that neither the former Boeing executive’s report, nor his observations, were ever shared with him or his team.

Stucky, a pillar of Virgin Galactic’s program and a legend in the flight-test community, had issued his own warnings about protecting the integrity of the flight-test program. In a 2017 e-mail to his team, he wrote, “We must stop de-scoping timelines because we are overworked and understaffed and instead should be jumping up and down on senior management’s desks saying exactly what contractor support, new hires, redistribution of effort, or whatever else is required.” In another e-mail, in 2019, he urged his fellow test pilots to be more transparent: “Failure to admit mistakes in flight test is a cancer that must be nipped at the bud.” Stucky, whom I wrote about in the magazine in 2018, had been particularly troubled by Mackay and Masucci’s unwillingness to take responsibility for what he perceived to be their mistakes on the July, 2018, flight.

Some of Stucky’s criticisms appeared in the book I wrote about him and Virgin Galactic’s rocket ship-program, “ Test Gods: Virgin Galactic and the Making of a Modern Astronaut .” After the publication of my book, in May, Stucky was stripped of his flight duties and excluded from key planning meetings ahead of the July 11th event. He watched Branson’s flight from the runway; it was the first mission for which he had no responsibilities after more than a decade on the program. Eight days after Branson’s flight, an H.R. manager booked time on his calendar, and then fired Stucky over Zoom.

His departure—coupled with Ericson’s, two years earlier—leaves the company without important internal voices for accountability. In a recent meeting, when an attendee suggested that Mackay and Masucci were lucky to have escaped serious problems after the entry glide-cone warning, the pilots grew defensive. A source inside the company said of Mackay, the pilot, “He should man up, own his mistake, and admit that he pooched the profile.” A senior company official told me that the flight path trajectory was acceptable but not optimal, nor what they intended, and that the incident was being reviewed.

In a written statement, Virgin Galactic described the July 11th flight as “a safe and successful test flight that adhered to our flight procedures and training protocols.” The statement added, “When the vehicle encountered high altitude winds which changed the trajectory, the pilots and systems monitored the trajectory to ensure it remained within mission parameters. Our pilots responded appropriately to these changing flight conditions exactly as they have been trained and in strict accordance with our established procedures.”

Last month, Virgin Galactic’s C.E.O. announced that, beginning in October, it would ground its fleet for eight months to work on the mothership that carries its space plane aloft, and then put a new space ship through a rigorous flight-test program—all of this without Stucky, the seasoned director of flight test. In 2018, after Stucky flew Virgin Galactic’s first successful space mission, a mentor of his from NASA wrote to congratulate him on “a job well done: as a Test Pilot and as a Program leader—in the face of significant technical and organizational challenges.” Sturckow, the former marine and current Virgin Galactic test pilot who’s flown to space twice with the company and four times with NASA , once commended Stucky for doing “an excellent fucking job as flight-test director, keeping this team of innocents from wandering in the woods endlessly.”

Stucky has spent the days since his departure mostly at home. He has received job offers, and former colleagues have stopped by bearing gifts and condolences. “What a loss for us, and what a way to treat someone who has been here since the beginning,” one engineer wrote to him. Others have come by asking for advice, which Stucky admits puts him in an awkward position. “I want to help my friends,” he told me. “But by the same token, I don’t think I should be helping a company that didn’t see any value in me.”

In late September, before overhauling its fleet, Virgin Galactic is scheduled to fly its next test flight, carrying several members of the Italian Air Force to space. The company spokesperson said Virgin Galactic “is guided by a fundamental commitment to safety at every level.”

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Money Report

Richard Branson shares the simple mindset that's key to his $2.5 billion success: ‘I don't ever think of myself as a businessperson'

By tom huddleston jr.,cnbc • published may 3, 2024 • updated on may 3, 2024 at 12:30 pm.

Richard Branson doesn't think of himself as a businessman — and he believes that helped him build Virgin Group into what it is today.

That's the reason he's taken some of the biggest risks that paved the way for the business to grow into a sprawling venture capital and holding company with dozens of companies across industries like telecommunications, travel, hospitality and spaceflight, Branson says.

"I don't ever think of myself as a businessperson, or even really an entrepreneur," Branson tells CNBC Make It. "I just see myself as somebody that loves to create things that I can be proud of."

A sole focus on making money likely would have prevented him from jumping into new industries with risky ventures throughout his career, he says — like launching airline Virgin Atlantic in 1984 when his past experience was in the music business, or starting Virgin Galactic and traveling to space on one of his own rockets.

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"There's many things that we've done that we wouldn't have done if we'd listened to accountants," says Branson.

Success shouldn't be defined as how much money you make, Branson says: Rather, it's about being proud of the work you do and helping make "a difference in other people's lives." Perhaps ironically, the strategy has proved lucrative for Branson, whose current net worth is estimated at $2.5 billion , according to Forbes.

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Branson isn't the only leader who sees himself as a creator, framing his successes and failures in terms of the impact they have on others. Frank Hasenfratz, the late billionaire founder of auto parts manufacturer Linamar, who died in 2022 , told CNBC as much about himself in 2019:

"I've got all the money in the world, but I'm still working," said Hasenfratz. "Money, of course, is a motivator. But to build something that lasts for a long time is the most gratifying achievement."

Of course, turning a profit is essential to keeping a business afloat — but potential profits shouldn't be the deciding factor that inspires you to launch a new venture or make a big decision, Branson advises.

In Branson's case, he knew launching Virgin Atlantic "was very risky," he says: He'd never owned an airline before, and he was entering a highly competitive industry led by larger, established rivals. But those competitors were lacking quality amenities and customer service, and he believed could build a better alternative, he adds.

Virgin Atlantic is still in business four decades later, despite emerging from bankruptcy proceedings in 2021. It posted a record annual revenue of roughly $3.8 billion last year.

Branson's bet on aerospace has been more challenging so far. Virgin Galactic trimmed staff and temporarily suspended commercial flights at the end of 2023, after posting a loss of more than $500 million last year.

"If I was a pure businessman, then I would never have decided to go into space," Branson says.

Rather, he says, his decision to create something new is "based on [this] instinct: 'If I create this can it be better than what everybody else is doing? Can it make a real difference in the world? Can it be something that we can all be very proud of?'"

"If it covers those basic criteria, then we'll give it a go and either fall flat on our face — if our instinct was wrong — or if our instinct was right, we can then grow it," says Branson.

Want to make extra money outside of your day job?  Sign up for CNBC's new online course How to Earn Passive Income Online to learn about common passive income streams, tips to get started and real-life success stories.

Plus, sign up for CNBC Make It's newsletter to get tips and tricks for success at work, with money and in life.

Also on CNBC

• Richard Branson: 1 word is 'all that really matters' to succeed—it's not money
• Inside Jeff Bezos’ morning routine: ‘I’m not as productive as you might think’
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"Virgin Celebration Voyage" Returns for Second Year with Sir Richard Branson & Boy George

Virgin voyages’ celebration series expands; includes three extraordinary voyages featuring special guests and some of virgin’s most influential leaders.

• Sir Richard Branson and Boy George at the Helm http%3A%2F%2Fwww.virginvoyages.com%2Fpress%2Flatest-releases%2F2nd-celebration-voyage-sir-richard-branson-and-boy-george" data-size="large" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-sharetype="twitter" aria-label="Share on Twitter" data-category="VV-__path__" data-action="social-share" data-label="twitter" >

MIAMI, FL - April 25, 2024 - Virgin Voyages is calling fans of the Virgin brand and loyal Sailors to embark on the company’s second-annual “Virgin Celebration Voyage.” In honor of Virgin’s 50+ year history, guests will have the opportunity to sail on three distinct voyages across the brand's worldwide fleet of Lady Ships. Featuring an incredible line-up of guests – most notably, the man who started it all, Sir Richard Branson – along with Boy George from Culture Club and a variety of Virgin company executives, these epic voyages are set to immerse Sailors into the brand’s rock-n-roll history and exciting future. Sir Richard and Virgin Voyages are thrilled to welcome Virgin executives alongside a distinguished cohort of Virgin Galactic-flown astronauts who recently returned from space. They’ll be joined by the famous Boy George whose iconic contributions to music and beloved single “Karma Chameleon” have left an indelible mark on pop culture. Together, these esteemed guests will lend their star power to this memorable adventure celebrating Virgin’s musical history with unparalleled brand insights. Sailors will have the opportunity to dive into immersive experiences that capture the disruptive essence of the Virgin brand. Hosted Shore Things, energizing fitness classes, interactive workshops, exclusive fireside chats and daily happy hours are just a few of the unique programs available during each Virgin Celebration Voyage. "Not only are we excited to bring back this special series, but we’re making a splash, doing it bigger & better than in 2023 with not one, but three incredible voyages,” said Nirmal Saverimuttu, CEO of Virgin Voyages . "Once a year, our Sailors have unprecedented access to immerse themselves in the magic of both Virgin Voyages and the Virgin brand. They’ll be rubbing elbows with visionary leaders from across the Virgin family and this year’s very special guests.” Dates for this year’s “Virgin Celebration Voyage” include:

• Valiant Lady - August 30 - September 4 : Dominican Daze (Miami - Puerto Plata - Beach Club at Bimini - Miami)
• Scarlet Lady - September 1-8 : French Daze & Ibiza Nights (Barcelona - Marseille - Cannes - Palma de Mallorca - Ibiza - Barcelona)
• Resilient Lady - September 3-8 : UK to Zeebrugge & Amsterdam (Portsmouth - Amsterdam - Zeebrugge (Bruges) - Portsmouth)

For more information about Virgin Voyages, or to book a cabin during the “Virgin Celebration Voyages,” visit www.VirginVoyages.com.

About Virgin Voyages

Promising to Create an Epic Sea Change for All, Virgin Voyages is the award-winning, exclusively adult cruise line founded by Sir Richard Branson. Delivering unforgettable, relaxing vacations at sea, Virgin Voyages launched at the end of 2021. Inspired by superyacht design, its fleet of Lady Ships exemplify an elevated, boutique hotel at sea with contemporary spaces that strike the perfect balance of nautical chic and glamour. Currently departing from the sun-soaked cities of Miami, Barcelona, and Athens, the fleet offers more than 60 unique itineraries, sailing to 100 incredible ports of call.

On-board, 20+ eateries feature culinary experiences from Michelin-star chefs, stylish workout spaces and group fitness classes are offered daily, and a festival-like line-up of intimate and larger-than-life shows are on the agenda. Paired with modern, tech-savvy cabins, designer suites fit for a rockstar, and a mermaid-inspired spa and thermal suite, the brand is taking the industry by storm. In 2023, Virgin Voyages won Travel + Leisure’s highly coveted World’s Best Award for the best mega-ship ocean cruise line and swept the Cruise Critic Cruisers’ Choice Awards - the first time a brand has won in all five categories.

Virgin Voyages Media Contact

Public relations team, michelle estevam.

Everything you need to know about space tourism

Posted: April 4, 2024 | Last updated: April 4, 2024

Between floating in weightlessness, witnessing 16 sunrises a day and gazing into the infinite void, space travel sure sounds like an out-of-this-world experience. And now, it’s no longer a thing of the future.

That’s right, soon interstellar awe will be open to (almost) anyone, as billionaires Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk are pushing the space tourism industry to a higher orbit.

What is space tourism?

Well, it’s almost like regular tourism: travel for recreational and leisure purposes… but in outer space. Some organizations like the Commercial Spaceflight Federation and the Citizens in Space project prefer to use the terms “personal spaceflight” or “citizen space exploration,” though.

In a nutshell, it’s space travel for non-astronauts.

Who can travel to space?

Anyone ! Well, that is, anyone with enough money. No need to have any previous science qualifications or NASA training, especially since a trained crew will escort tourists on their galactic journey.

According to Virgin Galactic, future space tourists will be between 10 and 90 years old, and come from diverse professional and cultural backgrounds.

The only thing you need? The desire to explore the universe!

What is orbital travel?

The main difference between orbital and suborbital flights lies in the trajectory and speed of the vessels.

To go into orbit, a rocket or spaceship needs to follow a path that goes around the Earth at the very fast minimum speed of 7.7 kilometres (4.8 miles) per second, in order to keep circling and never fall back down.

It allows astronauts and travellers to stay in space for extended periods of time, hence it is for now the preferred type of flight.

What is suborbital travel?

A suborbital flight , which is what Branson and Bezos did, “just” requires enough energy to blast off to space and then naturally fall back to Earth, making a huge arc.

It requires less energy and is less costly than orbital flights, thus opening doors for relatively affordable space tourism in the future.

Passengers would experience up to six minutes of weightlessness and a grandiose view.

How do you prepare?

Although Virgin Galactic doesn’t explicitly list its physical requirements, they did say astronauts would have to pass certain medical checkups and training programs. Blue Origin, on the other hand, has said that training for suborbital trips will only take a day.

And of course, any space tourist will also have to pass a series of thorough tests to determine whether they’re fit to fly up there.

Once in space, you may have to perform small bouts of exercise to prevent muscle wasting , which takes place after just seven days.

What is lunar tourism?

As its name hints, lunar tourism is the project of sending paying travellers to the moon. The first one could happen as soon as 2023, and would consist of a loop flight.

But three types of lunar tourism could be available in the near future: circumlunar trajectory, lunar orbit, and even lunar landing.

How cool would it be to say to someone, upon returning from a lunar vacation, “I’ve literally loved you to the moon and back”?

Where does space tourism take place?

Admittedly, space is a vast place. So where exactly would tourists go ?

First, any space travel begins with the Kármán line , which lies at 100 kilometres (62 miles) above sea level and is commonly accepted as the limit between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space.

Then, there are several options: orbital, suborbital, and lunar space tourism.

Have touristic space travels already occurred?

Yes! From 2001 to 2009, the Russian space agency and the U.S.-based space tourism company Space Adventures took seven (very wealthy) members of the public for several orbital space travels to the International Space Station.

The flights took place aboard the famous spacecraft Soyuz but stopped in 2010, since the crew of actual astronauts grew bigger and left no more seats available for paying space tourists.

Who were the first space tourists?

The American businessman Dennis Tito became officially the first space tourist in April 2001, when he stayed for seven days on the International Space Station.

He was followed by six multimillionaire fellows from various countries: South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth, American scientist Gregory Olsen, Iranian engineer Anousheh Ansari (the first female space tourist), Hungarian-American computer programmer Charles Simonyi, British video game mogul Richard Garriott, and Canadian businessman Guy Laliberté.

On July 11, 2021, billionaire Richard Branson, along with three Virgin Galactic employees and two pilots, reached an altitude of 85 kilometres (53 miles) above Earth aboard his Virgin Galactic rocket plane, the Unity. Less than 10 days later, on July 20, the world’s richest man, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, briefly entered space on Blue Origin , his private space company’s reusable rocket. He was joined by his younger brother Mark, Dutch teenager Oliver Daemen, and Wally Funk, who, at 82 years old, became the oldest astronaut.

Who would be the space tourism “agencies”?

Unlike past tourism experiments, which took place aboard vessels sent off for scientific purposes, future travels will happen on private companies’ flights set up solely for space tourism.

Those pioneering aerospace companies are Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic ; SpaceX, founded by Tesla co-founder Elon Musk ; and Blue Origin , created by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

When will space tourism happen?

Sooner than you think. According to Forbes , Virgin Galactic’s successful trip means the company could start sending civilians up into space as soon as early 2022. Likewise, Blue Origin, which has a Federal Aviation Administration licence for human space travel through August 2021, could officially enter the space tourism game by early 2022.

How much will it cost?

It’s not exactly clear at the moment, but there have been some indications. For example, Virgin Galactic began selling ticket reservations for US$250,000 and sold roughly 600, before a test crash in 2014 brought sales to a halt. They’re expected to start selling tickets again in 2022, but at a much higher price.

It was reported in 2018 that seats on Bezos’s Blue Origin would also cost in the ballpark of US$200,000 to US$300,000, but that could change given how high demand is. At a recent auction, the winning bid for a seat aboard the company’s first spaceflight was a whopping US$28 million .

The bottom line is, those hoping to take a trip around the stars will either need to know someone or have hundreds of thousands (likely even millions) of dollars to spare.

How do we get there?

The development of space tourism vehicles is still an ongoing project.

But a few options already exist, like Virgin Galactic’s spaceplanes that can carry up to eight people, or SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft , launched by the Falcon Heavy rocket.

Blue Origin’s New Shepard looks more like a regular rocket that takes off and lands vertically, but also claims to offer the biggest windows of any spacecraft—a good selling point. It comfortably sits six people and is fully autonomous, meaning no pilot onboard.

What does it feel like?

Needless to say, travelling to space is no walk in the park.

You’re eager to experience the joys of floating in microgravity? You better also get prepared to endure several physical discomforts: nausea and sea sickness, dizziness, headache, disorientation, puffy face, and bloodshot eyes.

But astronauts and previous space tourists agree that the body adjusts fairly quickly, getting used to its spatial environment in about three days.

Is it safe?

Safety is a reasonable concern , considering the many hazards involved in space travel: the probability of a crash, exposure to cosmic radiation, and even unknown dangers that could emerge with this new industry. But here is the real question for any adventurer: is the thrill worth the risk?

What is the food like?

For many tourists, food is a crucial criterion for a successful vacation. But outer space is no place for gourmets, at least not yet. Interstellar tourists can expect to enjoy mostly canned, modified, and pre-packaged meals (such as space burritos and freeze-dried ice cream). But soon, thanks to NASA’s veggie farm , space tourists might be able to savour space-grown salads.

What about the accommodations?

Orbital space travel allows you to stay up there for a few days or even weeks. At that point, you might want to stretch your legs outside of the spacecraft, right? Well, in the future, space stations could be used as hotels: the Genesis inflatable habitats by Bigelow Aerospace and the Space Island Project are existing examples. Make sure to book a room with a view of planet Earth!

How to pack a space suitcase?

Packing a suitcase for a trip through the cosmos is actually less of a headache than doing so for a weekend vacation on Earth. Just keep in mind that it’s impossible to do laundry in space, so pack clothes accordingly : stock up on underwear, light clothing (space station temperature is controlled at about 22 degrees Celsius, or 72 degrees Fahrenheit), and exercise outfits. Outerwear will be provided: an orange suit for takeoff and re-entry, and a white one for potential space strolls.

Is it eco-friendly?

With ecotourism being a growing trend and concern over the last few years, the question is legitimate. Well, bad news: space travel could have a negative impact by accelerating global warming . This would be caused by the black carbon released into the stratosphere after suborbital launches. But of course, entrepreneurs in the industry claim that the carbon footprint of space tourism would be minimal. The truth is, rockets emit 50 to 100 times more CO₂ per passenger than a regular flight. Considering that Virgin Galactic plans to do 400 trips per year, that’s a lot of CO₂ entering the atmosphere.

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