Richard Branson has been to space. He’s back safe and sound and he did it before Jeff Bezos could. Life is good. His brainchild V.S.S. Unity was boosted off the ground by “Mothership Eve” and carried to the very edge of the atmosphere at 50,000 feet. After dropping free of the launch platform, the main engines ignited to blast Bezos and his companions “to an altitude of 50 miles,” officially considered “to be the beginning of outer space.” That’s a first for a whole new industry, space tourism.
V.S.S. Unity rocket plane
Virgin Galactic just opened up a whole new industry, space tourism. V.S.S. Unity wasn’t the first space flight, or even the first commercial one, but it blazes a trail for tourists to go where no tourist has ever gone before.
To prove it’s safe enough for the public, the 70-year-old billionaire who footed most of the bill strapped in for the ride. He’s back, grinning ear-to-ear and selling tickets like hotcakes.
Branson and five others boarded the Unity rocket plane Sunday morning, July 11 at Spaceport America in New Mexico. Rather than boost into space all the way from the ground, more conventional means were used to get to the edge of the atmosphere.
Called “Mothership Eve,” It works like a tow plane and glider set up. The only difference is what happens after release.
Instead of an un-powered glide back to the ground, Unity lights up the rocket boosters for a quick 3 gees of acceleration.
When the power cuts, the crew is weightless in micro-gravity with an awesome view of the curved earth from 50 miles up. The whole trip from take-off to touch-down “took roughly an hour.”
I was once a child with a dream looking up to the stars. Now I'm an adult in a spaceship looking down to our beautiful Earth. To the next generation of dreamers: if we can do this, just imagine what you can do https://t.co/Wyzj0nOBgX #Unity22 @virgingalactic pic.twitter.com/03EJmKiH8V
— Richard Branson (@richardbranson) July 11, 2021
A five star rating
Branson “and his fellow crew members evaluated the experience for future Virgin Galactic customers.” You can bet they all gave five enthusiastic stars. The highlight seems to be the “weightlessness for a brief period of time while the craft was at its peak arc above the Earth.” Unity was piloted by David Mackay and Michael Masucci.
Three “mission specialists” were along to “evaluate the experience for future astronauts.” Beth Moses is chief astronaut instructor and Colin Bennet the lead operations engineer. Also onboard was Sirisha Bandla, vice president of government affairs and research operations at Virgin Galactic Spacelines.
Hard core science fiction fans will point out that “the true beginning of outer space is a hotly debated topic.” Even so, Branson was impressed with what he and Unity accomplished.
The flight, he insists “was “an experience of a lifetime.” Especially on the ride back down. It’s a historic milestone for “space travel and exploration.”
One thing is certain, there won’t be much “unity” between Branson and Jeff Bezos for a long, long while.
As Reuters reports, “The success of the flight also gave the flamboyant entrepreneur bragging rights in a highly publicized rivalry with fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos, the Amazon online retail mogul who had hoped to fly into space first aboard his own space company’s rocket.”