Billionaire Richard Branson reaches space in his own ship

Swashbuckling entrepreneur Richard Branson hurtled into space aboard his own winged rocket ship Sunday in his boldest adventure yet beating out fellow billionaire Jeff BezosThe nearly 71yearold Branson and five crewmates from his Virgin Galactic space tourism company reached an altitude of about 53 miles 88 kilometers over the New Mexico desert mdash enough to experience three to four minutes of weightlessness and see the curvature of the Earth mdash and then safely glided back home to a runway landingldquoSeventeen years of hard work to get us this farrdquo a jubilant Branson said as he congratulated his team on the trip backBranson became the first person to blast off in his own spaceship beating Bezos by nine daysHe also became only the second septuagenarian to depart for space John Glenn flew on the shuttle at age 77 in 1998With about 500 people watching including Bransons wife children and grandchildren a twinfuselage aircraft with his space plane attached underneath took off in the first stage of the flightThe space plane then detached from the mother ship at an altitude of about 8 12 miles 13 kilometers and fired its engine reaching the edge of space The entire flight up and back aboard the sleek white ship named Unity took just under 15 minutesVirgin Galactic conducted three previous test flights into space with crews of just two or threeThe flamboyant Londonborn founder of Virgin Atlantic Airways wasnt supposed to fly until later this summer But he assigned himself to an earlier flight after Bezos announced plans to ride his own rocket into space from Texas on July 20 the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landingBranson who has kitesurfed the English Channel and attempted to circle the world in a hotair balloon denied he was trying to beat BezosAnother one of Bransons chief rivals in the spacetourism race among the worlds richest men SpaceXs Elon Musk arrived in New Mexico to witness the flight wishing Branson via Twitter ldquoGodspeedrdquoBezos 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 companys rides will be betterBezos Blue Origin company intends to send tourists past the socalled Karman line 62 miles 100 kilometers above Earth which is is recognized by international aviation and aerospace federations as the threshold of spaceBut NASA the Air Force the Federal Aviation Administration and some astrophysicists consider the boundary between the atmosphere and space to begin 50 miles 80 kilometers upThe risks to Branson and his crew were underscored in 2007 when a rocket motor test in Californias 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 otherEver the showman Branson insisted on a global livestream of the Sunday morning flight and invited celebrities and former space station astronauts to the companys Spaceport America base in New MexicoRampB singer Khalid was on hand to perform his new single ldquoNew Normalrdquo mdash a nod to the dawning of space tourism mdash while CBS ldquoLate Showrdquo host Stephen Colbert served as the events master of ceremoniesVirgin Galactic already has more than 600 reservations from wouldbe space tourists with tickets initially costing USD 250000 apiece Blue Origin is waiting for Bezos flight before announcing its ticket pricesMusks SpaceX which is already launching astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA and is building moon and Mars ships is also competing for space tourism dollars But its capsules will do more than make brief upanddown forays they will go into orbit around the Earth with seats costing well into the millions Its first private flight is set for SeptemberMusk himself has not committed to going into space anytime soonldquoIts a whole new horizon out there new opportunities new destinationsrdquo said former NASA astronaut Chris Ferguson who commanded the last shuttle flight 10 years ago He now works for Boeing which is testflying its own space capsuleldquoThis is really sort of like the advent of commercial air travel only 100 years laterrdquo Ferguson added ldquoTheres a lot waiting in the wingsrdquoThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever