Virgin Galactic, an Anglo-American space travel company, announced on Thursday that it plans to send its founder Richard Branson into space on July 11 to defeat Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in the “space race.”
Branson will take the company’s first manned flight, which Virgin Galactic touts as “the beginning of a new space age.” Twitter posts read. Branson and the crew will launch 9 days before Bezos’ scheduled flight.
Joining Branson will be Virgin Galactic’s chief astronaut coach Beth Moses; Colin Bennet, chief operating engineer; and Sirisha Bandla, corporate vice president of government affairs.
Branson announced in a statement that the company’s VSS Unity spacecraft will be piloted by pilots Dave Mackay and Michael Masucci, and VMS Eve will be piloted by pilots CJ Sturckow and Kelly Latimer. Blog post.
The July 11 flight will be the company’s fourth test space flight to date. This will also be the first time that Virgin Galactic has carried four people on mission. The space flight will be broadcast live on Twitter, Youtube and Facebook.
“I have always been a dreamer. My mother taught me to never give up and to pursue the stars. On July 11, it is time to make this dream a reality on the next Virgin Galactic space flight. Be accompanied,” Branson wrote in the post.
Branson’s Virgin Galactic is currently competing with Bezos’ Blue Origin in the space tourism industry. Elon Musk’s Space X also plans to send passengers into space, but his plan will send people into orbit for long-distance travel.
Virgin Galactic’s announcement was made nearly three weeks before Bezos plans to take the Blue Origin rocket ship into space. The 82-year-old former pilot will join him Mary Wallace Fink.
She is”Mercury 13,In the 1960s, 13 women conducted private testing and training for NASA’s astronaut program. However, the program was later cancelled and these women were barred from becoming astronauts because of their gender.
Fink was also a pioneer in the aviation industry, becoming the first female Federal Aviation Administration inspector and an aviation safety investigator at the National Transportation Safety Board.
“Everything the FAA has, I have a license,” Fink said in an Instagram video. “Also, I can run past you!”
Jeff Bezos told the excited Wally Fink that she was finally flying into space
Photo: Blue Origin /-
