Arriving in space: Virgin Galactic is allowed to take tourists into space

Saturday, 26 June 2021

hold in space
Virgin Galactic is allowed to take tourists into space

The race for billionaires for the space tourism business is drawing to a close. A few weeks before Jeff Bezos is allowed to shoot into space with a rocket from his company Blue Origin, Richard Branson’s company also receives a license for tourist flights into space. Will he steal the show from Bezos?

Billionaire Richard Branson is allowed to take tourists into space with his space company Virgin Galactic. The US aviation authority, the FAA, gave the appropriate permission, as announced by Virgin Galactic. It evaluated data from a test flight of the Virgin spacecraft “VSS Unity” last month. The spacecraft flew to the space front in June with two pilots and returned safely to Earth.

SpaceShipTwo has space for a total of six passengers. Branson himself has also flown in space. Virgin Galactic chief executive Michael Colglazier said the FAA’s permission was encouraging. The first fully manned test flight is now planned for the summer.

With FAA approval, the race between the three billionaires for tourist flights into space is intensifying. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos wants to become the first non-astronaut to fly into space on July 20 with a rocket from his company Blue Origin. It’s unclear whether Virgin Galactic will steal Bezos now or not. The rumor mill is boiling violently: Reportedly, Branson wants to go to space before Bezos and July 4 – 16 days.

The third billionaire who is shedding tears is Tesla boss Elon Musk with his company SpaceX. However, he should not get in the way of both. So far he has only announced that he will begin the first flight with space tourists by the end of the year. So far, astronauts have already flown with SpaceX to the International Space Station ISS.

$200,000 for Zero Gravity

Interesting in the race between Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin: Virgin flights don’t come as high as Bezos’s Blue Origin — so it’s a matter of consideration whether they count as space flights.

While Virgin sees the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space at 50 miles (a good 80 kilometers) above sea level, like the US space agency NASA, Blue Origin follows the definition of the Fédération Internationale Aeronautic. Accordingly, space has reached only 100 kilometers above Earth, which Blue Origin receives, but Virgin Galactic does not.

Either way, investors are enjoying the space race: On Friday they were ready to push Virgin Galactic shares into higher territories. After the announcement of FAA approval, the course flew about a third as many times. Altogether, more than 600 people, including celebrities, are said to have bought one of the tickets for the 90-minute flight for about $250,000 (about 205,000 euros) and in a few minutes of weightlessness.