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- Branson and five crew members reached an altitude of more than 53 miles aboard Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity.
- The crew experienced several minutes of weightlessness and views of the Earth before plunging back into the atmosphere.
- “I’ve always dreamt what it would be like to be in space looking back at this incredible Earth. It’s impossible to describe just how magnificent it is,” Branson told NBC’s “Today.”
Billionaire Richard Branson successfully launched into space aboard a winged rocket ship developed by his company Virgin Galactic Sunday, marking a key milestone in making suborbital space tourism a reality.
The company’s spacecraft VSS Unity was released by a carrier aircraft more than 40,000 feet over the New Mexico desert Sunday morning when, firing its engines and hitting speeds surpassing 2,300 miles per hour in a climb to the edge of space.
I was once a child with a dream looking up to the stars. Now I’m an adult in a spaceship looking down to our beautiful Earth. To the next generation of dreamers: if we can do this, just imagine what you can do https://t.co/Wyzj0nOBgX #Unity22 @virgingalactic pic.twitter.com/03EJmKiH8V
— Richard Branson (@richardbranson) July 11, 2021
The spacecraft zoomed to an altitude more than 53 miles, giving Branson and his five crew members several minutes of weightlessness and views of the Earth before plunging back into the atmosphere and touching down at Virgin Galactic’s launch site.
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“I’ve always dreamt what it would be like to be in space looking back at this incredible Earth. It’s impossible to describe just how magnificent it is,” Branson told NBC’s “Today” Monday.
“I was once a child with a dream looking up to the stars, now I’m an adult in a spaceship,” Branson said during a livestream of the flight.
“To the next generation of dreamers, if we can do this, just imagine what you can do,” Branson said.
The historic trip secures Branson’s win in the so-called space race with Jeff Bezos, who is set to fly to space on his company Blue Origin’s first passenger flight on July 20.
Virgin Galactic is aiming to kick off commercial space flights with private customers in 2022 with an estimated price tag of about $250,000 per person.
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