Richard Branson will be the first rocket company owner to leave Earth on Sunday, Virgin Galactic’s Space plane Rush to the edge of space with the weird billionaire.
The London-born founder of Virgin Group will conduct a test flight with five company employees on Sunday morning, which will take off from the southern desert of New Mexico at 10:30 am Eastern Time.
This is the company’s fourth trip to the edge of space. After two catastrophic failures since Virgin Galactic was founded in 2004, the first successful launch occurred in 2018.
A rocket engine test in the Mojave Desert, California in 2007 killed three workers and injured three. Then in 2014, the Enterprise rocket plane named after the “Star Trek” ship burst during a test flight. One pilot died and the other was seriously injured.
But this successful spacecraft-named “Unity” by the late physicist Stephen Hawking-left Earth once and entered space twice.
If Sunday’s launch goes smoothly, Branson, 70, will join a group of less than 600 people who once had the opportunity to leave the Earth.
“I’m now in my 70s, so you can either let go or get healthy and enjoy life,” Branson said of his plan.
When he entered space, he said, “I will look back at our beautiful earth and absorb it all.”
His wife, children and grandchildren will watch the launch on Sunday morning. Unity will connect to a specially designed two-person aircraft — named Eve after Branson’s late mother — and soar upward. When the plane reaches 50,000 feet, it will be released.
At that moment, Unity will briefly drop. Then its rocket engine will ignite, launching the billionaire and his passengers to the stars.
When the spacecraft reaches the edge of space, its engines will shut down. Then, passengers will get a few minutes of weightlessness experience, relax and gaze at the stars and the planet where their family and friends are. Then they would fasten their seat belts and glide back to earth.
Branson was originally scheduled to go to space later this summer. But when he heard that Jeff Bezos of Blue Origin planned to launch his own rocket on July 20, the billionaire space race came to a climax, and Branson advanced his flight to Sunday.
Virgin Galactic will not open its business to paying customers until at least next year-but for those who wish to experience space for themselves, this will come at a high price. The initial ticket price for the final space flight was US$250,000; and there is no word on whether this will change.
— Documents from the Associated Press and Reuters
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