Branson blasts off, launches Space Tourism – With insights from The Wall Street Journal

Five years ago, Elon Musk's Tesla bought another company he had co-founded, SolarCity – the retail renewable energy business run by the other co-founders, Musk's cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive (they grew up together in Pretoria). Musk is now being sued by some other Tesla shareholders, including pension funds, who claim he engineered overpayment for SolarCity. Musk is arguing that as the deal had approval from Tesla's shareholders (he owned 22% at the time) everything was above board. He is not fretting much about the court action – Musk is the highest profile passenger booked on a space ride with Virgin Galactic. Below is the uplifting story of yesterday's debut flight by Richard Branson's latest venture. – Alec Hogg.Use Spotify? Access BizNews podcasts here..Use Apple Podcasts? Access BizNews podcasts here..___STEADY_PAYWALL___.Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic Flight Opens Door to Space Tourism.Hourlong trip was aimed at highlighting the safety and potential of sending paying passengers to the edge of space.By Micah Maidenberg and Doug Cameron of The Wall Street Journal.Updated July 11, 2021 5:40 pm ET.TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M.— Richard Branson reached the edge of space and safely returned to Earth, a trip that marks a turning point in the billionaire entrepreneur's multidecade effort to help create a space-tourism industry..The space trip that Mr. Branson and five other crew members completed Sunday morning on a Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. rocket plane lends credence to the company's ability to safely take passengers to and from space..Virgin Galactic, the company Mr. Branson founded, plans to initiate commercial service next year, charging passengers hundreds of thousands of dollars each for such flights. The test flight was aimed at evaluating systems and the passenger experience, as well as providing additional validation of its safety. Vehicles developed by private space companies have been tested a fraction of the number of times compared with the planes used by airlines.The British entrepreneur and five crew members crossed one threshold of space, climbing 53.5 miles above the Earth's surface.At the peak of the spaceship VSS Unity's 15-minute trip after separating from the launch aircraft, crew members unbuckled from their seats and experienced weightlessness, peering at Earth and into space from a dozen windows in the cabin."We're here to make space more accessible to all," Mr. Branson said Sunday after landing. His only worry was "some tiny little something" that would prevent the trip from happening, he added later.The flight is part of a broader push from companies and investors to develop viable businesses based on human space flight, long dominated by government space agencies with scientific and policy missions.Unity's trip meant that, for a few minutes, there were a record 16 people in space, including its crew and those on board the International Space Station and China's Tiangong capsule. Overall, hundreds of people have successfully visited suborbital space since the 1960s, including some private tourists, such as investor Dennis Tito's visit via a Russian rocket to the station in 2001. But Mr. Branson's round-trip visit illustrates the efforts that private companies are now undertaking to develop businesses that can ultimately carry hundreds of people a year..Other companies are expected to join Virgin Galactic in transporting passengers to and from space. Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, plans to fly the chief executive of a payments company and three others into orbit this year..Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos has been investing in his space company, Blue Origin LLC, which plans to take him and three others to suborbital space on a company rocket on July 20. Blue Origin said it is flying above the Karman Line, a boundary some 62 miles above Earth considered to be the start of space by many. The Federal Aviation Administration defines space as starting at 50 miles..Mr. Bezos and Mr. Musk, who was in New Mexico for the Virgin Galactic launch, both extended their congratulations to Mr. Branson on social media..A plane, called the VMS Eve, took off at 10:40 a.m. ET, carrying Unity. Roughly 45 minutes later, a red flare was visible in the sky when the spacecraft was released from the plane and fired its rocket, sending Unity surging up. Shortly after, the spacecraft had reached space. By 11:36 a.m. ET, the plane and the spacecraft could be seen in the sky making their descent to the Spaceport America facility in New Mexico..At the facility, Virgin Galactic staged a live streamed event, which included late-night TV host Stephen Colbert and singer Khalid. Around 500 guests were in attendance, including New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham..The Spaceport America facility, which was constructed using funds from New Mexico and local tax dollars, should help foster the state's economy, Gov. Lujan Grisham said. "We're on the map," she said. The nearby town of Truth or Consequences put itself on the map in 1950 after residents voted to change its name from Hot Springs to successfully win the right to host an episode of the eponymous game show, according to the Sierra County website..Space tourism could generate close to $4 billion in annual revenue by 2030, according to an estimate last year from UBS.Virgin Galactic has said it plans to initiate paying-passenger space flights in 2022. The company has reported 600 reservations for future flights backed by $80 million in deposits. It reported a loss of $273 million for last year and, compared with Blue Origin and SpaceX, has a business model that is more deeply tied to the emergence of a space-tourism sector.The company hasn't disclosed what it will charge for tickets when it starts selling them again, but prices are likely to be out of reach for most people for some time. Mr. Musk is one of the ticket holders, a Virgin Galactic spokesman said. In the past, the company has sold tickets for as much as $250,000 each, according to its latest annual report. Representatives for Mr. Musk's Tesla Inc. and SpaceX didn't respond to requests for comment.Sunday's flight was the 22nd for Unity. Joining the 70-year-old Mr. Branson were Beth Moses, chief astronaut instructor at Virgin Galactic; Colin Bennett, a lead operations engineer at the company; and Sirisha Bandla, a Virgin Galactic vice president focused on government affairs and research. Dave Mackay and Michael Masucci were the spacecraft's pilots. Members of the crew had parachutes, a spokesman said.Mr. Branson is behind a business empire that includes airlines, cruise ships, hotels and gyms. Those ventures are trying to recover from the effects the Covid-19 pandemic had on travel and tourism. In recent years, Mr. Branson has made his space businesses, which include the satellite-launch company Virgin Orbit, his main focus. He said Sunday that as part of a charitable effort, Virgin Galactic would give away two seats on a company flight, and that he would give a tour of the Spaceport America facility to the winners.Kerrianne Flynn, a Virgin Galactic customer who attended the event, said she signed up in December 2011 for a space flight. She is unsure when she will eventually get to make the trip but added the wait has been worth it. She said: "There's going to be nothing like going up there."Write to Micah Maidenberg at micah.maidenberg@wsj.com and Doug Cameron at doug.cameron@wsj.comCopyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8Appeared in the July 12, 2021, print edition as 'Branson Flight Reaches Edge of Space.'

Branson blasts off, launches Space Tourism – With insights from The Wall Street Journal

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