Virgin Galactic already has more than 600 reservations from would-be space tourists, with tickets initially costing $250,000 apiece. R&B singer Khalid was on hand to perform his new single “New Normal” - a nod to the dawning of space tourism - while CBS “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert served as the event’s master of ceremonies. Branson insisted on a global livestream of the Sunday morning flight and invited celebrities and former space station astronauts to the company’s Spaceport America base in New Mexico. Branson and his crew were underscored in 2007, when a rocket motor test in Mojave Desert left three workers dead, and in 2014, when a Virgin Galactic rocket plane broke apart during a test flight, killing one pilot and seriously injuring the other.Įver the showman, Mr. Bezos likewise sent his wishes for a safe and successful flight, though he also took to Twitter to enumerate the ways in which be believes his company’s rides will be better.īezos’ Blue Origin company intends to send tourists past the so-called Karman line 100 kilometres above earth, which is is recognised by international aviation and aerospace federations as the threshold of space.īut NASA, the Air Force, the Federal Aviation Administration and some astrophysicists consider the boundary between the atmosphere and space to begin 80 kilometres up. Branson’s chief rivals in the space-tourism race among the world’s richest men, SpaceX’s Elon Musk, arrived in New Mexico to witness the flight, wishing Mr. Branson, who has kite-surfed the English Channel and attempted to circle the world in a hot-air balloon, denied he was trying to beat Mr. Bezos announced plans to ride his own rocket into space from Texas on July 20, the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. But he assigned himself to an earlier flight after Mr. The flamboyant, London-born founder of Virgin Atlantic Airways wasn’t supposed to fly until later this summer. The entire flight up and back aboard the sleek white ship, named Unity, took just under 15 minutes. The space plane then detached from the mother ship at an altitude of about 13 kilometres) and fired its engine, reaching the edge of space. 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. With about 500 people watching, including Mr.