Elon Musk has booked a seat with Virgin Galactic for a journey to the sting of area.
The revelation got here through the Wall Avenue Journal on Sunday, July 11, the day that Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson participated within the firm’s first absolutely crewed spaceflight forward of the launch of a business area tourism service.
It’s not clear when Musk will step aboard the VSS Unity spaceplane for the rocket-powered expertise, although Virgin Galactic says it’s hoping to launch its area tourism service in 2022 following two extra take a look at flights this yr.
Tickets for the once-in-a-lifetime expertise value $250,000, with Virgin Galactic having to this point offered round 600 seats after launching gross sales a number of years in the past.
In response to Branson, the 2 billionaire entrepreneurs are literally good buddies, evidenced partially by a photo tweeted by the Virgin Galactic founder on Sunday, shortly earlier than he headed skyward aboard Unity.
Musk additionally has plans to launch an area tourism service, although SpaceX’s might be extra complicated, providing a number of days in orbit aboard a Crew Dragon spacecraft lifted into area by a two-stage rocket, whereas Virgin Galactic’s flight lasts simply quarter-hour and affords passengers just a few minutes of weightlessness, in addition to gorgeous views of Earth.
Whereas it’s completely potential Musk might take a journey to area on one in all his personal rockets, the coaching course of for Virgin Galactic’s flight is way shorter and so would take much less day trip of his busy schedule overseeing not solely SpaceX, but additionally electric-car firm Tesla, which he additionally leads. As well as, SpaceX doesn’t but have a strong schedule for launching civilian-only area journeys, although it’s planning to conduct its first one in September utilizing a specifically designed Crew Dragon spacecraft.
Richard Branson turned Sunday’s Virgin Galactic take a look at flight into a giant advertising occasion for the corporate’s upcoming area tourism service, streaming the mission dwell in addition to inviting a lot of well-known folks — Musk amongst them — to the launch website in New Mexico. The day additionally featured a efficiency by Grammy-winning artist Khalid and a “welcome dwelling” ceremony for the Unity crew.
Virgin Galactic’s first absolutely crewed flight got here simply forward of one other one subsequent week that can see Amazon founder Jeff Bezos journey to the sting of area aboard a New Shepard rocket constructed by one other of his firms, Blue Origin. The flight would be the first crewed outing performed by Blue Origin and will pave the way in which for an area tourism service much like the one supplied by Virgin Galactic, although the 2 transportation programs differ drastically.
Whereas some people see the billionaires’ area race as a vulgar pursuit and a waste of giant quantities of cash, others are having fun with the thought of constructing area extra accessible, even when, for now at the least, the price of tickets means solely the super-rich will get to benefit from the area expertise.
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