Virgin Galactic Sends First Tourist Flight to Edge of Space

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Facts

  • Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic sent its first space tourists — former British Olympian Jon Goodwin and a mother-daughter duo from the Caribbean — to the edge of space Thursday after nearly two decades of delays.1
  • The rocket-powered space plane, VSS Unity, launched at 8:30 a.m. MST from Virgin Galactic's spaceport in New Mexico, attached beneath the wing of its massive twin-fuselage mothership, the VMS Eve.2
  • Fifty minutes into the voyage, the Unity separated from Eve, allowing the tourists to unbuckle and experience zero gravity at an altitude of about 85 km (52 miles). The trio returned to the spaceport after an hour.3
  • Goodwin, 80, competed in canoeing in the 1972 Olympics and purchased his ticket in 2005 for $200K — the tickets now cost $450K. He was joined by Antigua-based health coach Keisha Schahaff, 46, and her 18-year-old daughter Anastasia Mayers.4
  • Thursday's mission was Virgin Galactic's seventh spaceflight and its third since May, but its first commercial flight. The company intends to send the VSS Unity into space once per month and is developing the "Delta-class" fleet of spacecraft that will debut in 2026 and fly weekly.5
  • Virgin Galactic joins Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Elon Musk's SpaceX in the exclusive space tourism business.6

Sources: 1Associated Press, 2CNN, 3BBC News, 4NBC, 5CNBC, and 6Sky News.

Narratives

  • Narrative A, as provided by Mirror. Virgin Galactic's historic mission of sending three tourists into space is revolutionary in the fascinating and nascent space tourism industry. While it may have taken a while to come together, the trip was worth the wait. Now Richard Branson's company can fly out tourists monthly and eventually weekly as Virgin Galactic makes history.
  • Narrative B, as provided by The Byte. Eighteen years after one of its passengers bought his ticket, Virgin Galactic finally sent its first set of tourists to "space." Well, it flew them at very high altitudes. While it was impressive to see the company's aircraft fly so high, it wasn't a trip to space. Virgin Galactic has made progress in its mission to send people to space but still has a long way to go to fulfill its promise.

Predictions