The Billionaire Space Race Has Been Won
Photo Source: virgingalactic.com
On Sunday morning, July 11, 2021 Sir Richard Branson finally realized a decades-long dream: Adding “Astronaut” to the long list of titles and honors he’s accumulated. Sir Richard (as you can be called when the Queen of England knights you) is the founder of Virgin Galactic, among other enterprises, such as Virgin Records, Virgin Atlantic Airlines, and Virgin Media.
At 8:40 a.m. Mountain time, the “carrier” aircraft took off with the V.S.S. Unity tucked beneath. After flying to an altitude of 45,000 feet the Unity was released ignited its rocket motor and flew to 53.5 miles above the earth. After landing, he celebrated back on our blue planet, saying, “The whole thing was magical.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Getting to the edge of space and floating weightless (you’re actually in “freefall”) for the four minutes passengers and crew could enjoy was an incredible accomplishment for a private enterprise to accomplish, and I have to congratulate him for his daring feat. But even more important is that this flight, though soon to be followed by Jeff Bezos’ flight on Blue Origin, may open up what’s called Space Tourism to the public – albeit for only the very rich public at this time.
Branson, 70, believes that there is a market to carry as many as 2 million people on suborbital spaceflights priced in the $250,000 to $500,000 range, meaning a $1T market at the upper level. The industry could also expand. "There's room for 20 space companies to take people up there," Branson said in a recent interview. "The more spaceships we can build, the more we can bring the price down and the more we'll be able to satisfy demand and that will happen over the years to come.”
Bezos will make a run at suborbital space on July 20, launching aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket. His system launches vertically from the ground, whereas Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo/V.S.S. Unity is released mid-air and glides back to Earth for a runway landing. And of course Elon Musk’s SpaceX program has been operating for some time, though whether he’ll open up his rockets to space tourism still isn’t decided.
This first test of commercial space flight is one of the most interesting developments in decades. It’s like when the first commercial air service began taking passengers. This was on May 23, 1926, when Western Air Express inaugurated the first scheduled airline passenger service in the United States, flying the nation’s first commercial airline passenger from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles. At that time, no one could foresee the growth of this new industry or the technological innovations that would be developed in commercial aircraft, and very few thought that the new endeavor could be as profitable as so many airlines have become.
To find out how you too can journey to space, visit: www.virgingalactic.com.