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Thrill-seeking billionaire Richard Branson has reached space aboard his own winged rocket ship in his boldest adventure yet. The feat vaults the nearly 71-year-old Branson past fellow billionaire and rival Jeff Bezos, who is planning to fly to space in a craft of his own nine days from now. With about 500 people watching, including Branson’s wife, children and grandchildren, a twin-fuselage aircraft with his space plane attached underneath took off in the first stage of the flight. Aboard were Branson and five crewmates from his Virgin Galactic space-tourism company.

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M.—Richard Branson is scheduled to travel to the edge of space Sunday in a flight aimed at spurring a new, multibillion-dollar space-tourism industry. The flight, originally scheduled for 9 a.m. ET, was delayed 90 minutes on Sunday because of weather overnight at the launch facility in New Mexico. The launch is now scheduled for 10:30 a.m. ET. At that time, a highflying Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. airplane is expected to take off from the Spaceport America facility near Truth or Consequences. The plane, called the VMS Eve, will carry the spacecraft VSS Unity, which will include Mr....

It’s no secret that the commercial space industry (aka. NewSpace) has become immensely lucrative in recent years, nor the fact that it has become intensely competitive as a result. To illustrate, one needs to look no further than the top three NewSpace companies in the world right now: SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic. Between these three companies, all founded by billionaires with similar visions, a new space race has begun. In recent months, the race has intensified as Jeff Bezos announced that he would be going to space on the inaugural flight of the New Shepard rocket. In response,...

Virgin Galactic LLC, Richard Branson’s space-tourism venture, reached the edge of space in a test flight Thursday, four years after a fatal accident set back the project, forced a reassessment of safety issues and roiled the growing commercial-space industry. Virgin Galactic launched the spaceplane called SpaceShip Two and its two pilots from a carrier aircraft cruising miles above Southern California’s Mojave desert. For around $200,000 a seat, the closely held company seeks to offer thrill rides featuring majestic views of the earth capped by a few minutes of weightlessness. The launch also could provide momentum for nascent private efforts to...

The statement didn’t specify what it meant by “space altitude,” but company officials have previously said they were using the altitude of 50 miles, or approximately 80 kilometers, used by NASA and the U.S. Air Force for awarding astronaut wings. “For Virgin Galactic, the major milestone that we perceive is the altitude at which NASA and Air Force folks get their astronaut wings, which is 50 miles,” George Whitesides, chief executive of Virgin Galactic, said last month. “For us and our customers, I think we’ll be focused on 50 miles, at least at the start.” That is below the 100-kilometer...

The VSS Unity is a SpaceShipTwo vehicle designed to carry six commercial passengers and two pilots into space, where they will experience 5 minutes of weightlessness before gliding back down to Earth. "It was a thrill from start to finish," the craft's chief pilot, Dave Mackay, said in a statement about today's flight. "Unity's rocket motor performed magnificently again, and Sooch [co-pilot Mike Masucci] pulled off a smooth landing. This was a new altitude record for both of us in the cockpit, not to mention our mannequin in the back, and the views of Earth from the black sky were...

SIR Richard Branson tried to prevent the Iraq war in a secret deal with Nelson Mandela. The Virgin boss hoped to send the former leader of South Africa to meet Saddam Hussein and persuade him to go into exile. He even got United Nations chief Kofi Annan's approval for the plan, despite fears that Saddam might kidnap Mandela. A private jet was ready to fly the Nobel Peace Prize winner to Iraq. Branson offered to join him on the peace mission. But coalition forces invaded Iraq just before they went. Branson opposed invasion plans and believed if they could offer...

Inspired by Apple CEO Tim Cook, Virgin founder Richard Branson has taken to his blog to say that businesses should begin standing up against climate change deniers. "While Tim told sustainability skeptics to 'get out of our stock,'" Branson writes, "I would urge climate change deniers to get out of our way." Cook's statements came at a recent shareholders meeting, where he soundly shot down a proposal rooted in climate change denial that would have had Apple putting its bottom line above its interests in sustainability. Cook said that those who would prefer Apple do everything purely for profit simply...

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane disintegrated in mid-air after two tail stabilizers prematurely extended, federal investigators said Sunday, a discovery that could shift the focus of the probe into Friday’s fatal crash away from the craft’s rocket motor. But the National Transportation Safety Board’s acting chairman Christopher Hart cautioned against jumping to conclusions. “What I’m about to say is a statement of fact and not a statement of cause,” Hart said. “We are a long way from finding cause. We still have months and months of investigation to do, and there’s a lot that we don’t know. We have extensive...

Branson along with Bill Gates, Cargill, and Kimball Musk, backed the Memphis Meats clean-meat startup in its $17 million Series A round, which went on to raise in excess of $22 million. Memphis Meats will join a cadre of sustainable food businesses such as the three Israeli companies — Meat the Future, Future Meat Technologies, and SuperMeat — which will supply food to China as part of a $300 million deal. Branson, who gave up meat in 2014, appears to be investing in alignment with his beliefs and predictions about the future, all while trying to act against the deforestation...

CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL SAYS ONE PERSON KILLED, ONE INJURED IN CRASH OF VIRGIN GALACTIC SPACECRAFT IN MOJAVE DESERT -CNN, CNBC This is a breaking news story. Please check back for further updates. CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Oct 31 (Reuters) - A suborbital passenger spaceship being developed by Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic crashed during a test flight on Friday at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, officials said. Two pilots were aboard the spaceship, which was undergoing its first powered test flight since January. It was not immediately known if they were able to parachute to safety. More than 800...

MOJAVE, Calif. — Virgin Galactic made a triumphant return to powered flight today (April 5) with a successful test of the company's SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity suborbital vehicle. It was the company's first powered flight in nearly 3.5 years, following the tragic loss of SpaceShipTwo VSS Enterprise on Oct 31, 2014. During the descent, the crew deployed SpaceShipTwo's feather system, which reconfigures the ship into a high-drag shuttlecock by moving its twin tail booms. The feather will be used to soften the vehicle's re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere during spaceflight. "@virgingalactic back on track,ꞌꞌ Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson tweeted after today's...

Virgin Galactic performed the latest glide flight of its second SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane Aug. 4, calling it a "dry run" for upcoming powered test flights. SpaceShipTwo, carried aloft by its WhiteKnightTwo aircraft, separated from the plane about an hour after its 11:58 a.m. Eastern takeoff from Mojave Air and Space Port in California. The spaceplane landed back in Mojave ten minutes later. The glide flight was the sixth for this SpaceShipTwo vehicle, named VSS Unity, and the first in two months. As on two previous glide flights, pilots tested the feathering system that raises the vehicle's twin tail booms for...

Defence giant BAE Systems to buy a stake in Britain's Reaction Engines, which is developing revolutionary SABRE engines for ultra-fast aircraft How an aircraft fitted with the SABRE engines might look ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hypersonic air travel and cut-price satellite launches will move a step closer when BAE Systems buys a stake in a UK company developing engines able to power aircraft at 2,500mph and into space. The FTSE 100 group is set to purchase 20pc of Oxfordshire-based Reaction Engines for £20.6m, in a deal that will see the defence giant’s expertise applied to research on the privately-held company’s engine, which combines...

You may recall that back in the early years of the Age of Obama NASA decided to go in a new direction. No longer satisfied with their mission to explore space, they decided to pursue the much sexier goal of promoting Muslim self esteem - because nothing is as important as self esteem.Since NASA was exiting the rocket business in order to set up a public relations agency, they subcontracted the outer space division to private investors handpicked by bureaucrats. Alas, CHANGE is difficult and the NASA switch proved to be no exception; our outsourced space program has recently experienced...

Ever since the Obama administration’s rollout of its space policy two and a half years ago, conventional ideological wisdom has been turned on its head. An administration that had seemed eager to increase government involvement in everything from auto companies to health care proposed a more competitive, privatized approach to spaceflight, and people claiming to be conservatives blasted it, demanding that the traditional (and failing) NASA monopoly continue. Jim Muncy, a former aide on space policy to California congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R.), put it cleverly: “Democrats don’t think that capitalism works within the atmosphere, and Republicans apparently don’t think it...

As a former NASA executive, I am saddened by the media response to Newt Gingrich's proposal that we return to the moon. The mockery and ridicule does America a great disservice. Space exploration and development is an important national issue. It's not only possible and necessary to safeguard our future—it can be a lot cheaper than anybody dreams.

Summer 2004 The Path Not Taken Rand Simberg n June 21, 2004, with thousands in attendance in the small southern California desert town of Mojave, a sexagenarian test pilot performed the first trip to space in a privately-built spacecraft. SpaceShipOne, as it is called, cost less than $30 million and was funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Occurring seventeen months after the loss of the shuttle Columbia put America’s manned space program on hiatus, the SpaceShipOne flight received a surprising amount of publicity. The achievement, while impressive, was also limited: SpaceShipOne’s flight was only a suborbital test, roughly the equivalent...

AFTER the destruction of America’s Columbia space shuttle three years ago, the final frontier was in danger of becoming a frontier too far. The shuttle programme began to be wound down, aspirations for the International Space Station were scaled back and scientific projects such as the Hubble telescope were decommissioned. However, beyond the shuttle, space is a booming market and, for the first time, much of the drive is coming from the private sector. The multibillion-dollar satellite business continues to be very important to companies including Boeing, Lockheed Martin and EADS, which builds the Ariane rocket. Russia, China and Japan...

Space tourism is less than three years away, Sir Richard Branson has claimed. There are already 13,500 potential passengers for the £100,000 ($190,000) "Virgin Galactic spaceliner" trip, Sir Richard told the BBC. The entrepreneur is having five "spaceliners" built in the US by the team which launched the SpaceShipOne rocket plane last year.