British billionaire richardbranson is due to climb into his Virgin Galactic passenger rocket plane in the very early hours of Monday morning Australian time and soar above the New Mexico desert in a test flight to the edge of space.
British billionaire Richard Branson was due on Sunday to climb into his Virgin Galactic passenger rocket plane and soar about 70 kilometres above the New Mexico desert in the vehicle’s first fully crewed test flight to the edge of space.
The Swiss-based investment bank UBS has estimated the potential value of the space tourism market reaching $3 billion annually by 2030.An earlier prototype of the Virgin Galactic rocket plane crashed during a test flight over California’s Mojave Desert in 2014, killing one pilot and seriously injuring another.
Branson, a week away from his 71st birthday, has insisted he and Bezos are friendly rivals and not engaged in a personal contest to beat one another into space. Separating from the carrier jet at an altitude of 50,000 feet, Unity’s pilots will ignite its rocket engine to send the spaceplane streaking in a near-vertical climb to the blackness of space some 55 miles high, where the crew will experience about 4 minutes of microgravity.
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