Billionaires and their spaceships: What next for space tourism?

Richard Branson beat rival Jeff Bezos into space by at least nine days, signalling the start of a new era in space tourism – for the rich, at least.

Sir Richard Branson is now an astronaut. The 70-year-old billionaire rocketed towards the stars in a fully crewed Virgin Galactic spacecraft on Sunday morning – at least nine days before rival space tycoon Jeff Bezos hopes to try and reach the edge of space in a Blue Origin ship. Branson’s successful flight is more than just a victory in a space race between billionaires; it fires the starting gun on a new era that could open space travel beyond government programmes to non-professional astronauts – and in doing so, provide yet another boost to a rapidly evolving space economy. Following Sunday’s success, Virgin Galactic expects to launch commercial flights to suborbital space next year. To date, the firm has sold an estimated 600 tickets, fetching a price of roughly $250,000 each. Some of the paid-up passengers include celebrities like Tom Hanks and Lady Gaga as well as fellow space-boosting billionaire, Elon Musk.