Virgin Galactic is set to fly first private tourists to space
BNN Bloomberg
Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. is poised to launch its first private space tourists on Thursday morning, the company’s second commercial spaceflight and a long-awaited milestone in founder Richard Branson’s quest to build a “spaceline for Earth.”
Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. is poised to launch its first private space tourists on Thursday morning, the company’s second commercial spaceflight and a long-awaited milestone in founder Richard Branson’s quest to build a “spaceline for Earth.”
The suborbital joyride from a New Mexico spaceport caps nearly two decades of development work and allows Virgin Galactic to finally begin clearing a backlog of roughly 800 ticket holders who have been waiting for rides to space. Virgin Galactic is competing against Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin to sell trips to thrill-seekers looking to shed Earth’s gravity for a few minutes, the driving reason the company was first created.
The passengers include 80-year-old Jon Goodwin, a British former Olympian who has Parkinson’s Disease, as well as Keisha Schahaff and Anastatia Mayers, a mother-daughter pair from the Caribbean who won their seats through a charity drawing. They’ll be joined by two pilots and a Virgin Galactic support astronaut.