Virgin Galactic¡¯s Successful Space Flight Broke Five Records Along The Way

British Billionaire Richard Branson created history by successfully travelling in space aboard his very own Virgin Galactic vessel, which is expected to soon begin a new era of space tourism for all.

Reuters

Also Read: Virgin Galactic Will Help NASA Take Private Passengers To Space Station Very Soon

The aircraft reached a peak altitude of 85 kilometres, going beyond the boundary of space that also allowed Branson and his fellow passengers to experience weightlessness while looking at Earth¡¯s curve from up above.

Virgin Galactic took Branson and others to space aboard a massive aircraft to reach a maximum flying altitude, after which the spaceplane disconnected from it, made the passengers experience weightlessness and soon entered Earth¡¯s orbit and landed at around 1540 GMT. However, in this hour-long journey, they managed to create quite a few records.

Becoming the first billionaire in space

Richard Branson with a net worth of $5.6 billion has created history in becoming the first billionaire to head to space, beating Amazon and Blue Origin¡¯s Jeff Bezos, as well as SpaceX¡¯s Elon Musk by a very thin margin.

Reuters

Also Read: Space Race 2.0: The Ridiculously Rich Locked In Star Wars

Bezos is scheduled to go to space later this month, aboard a Blue Origin spacecraft along with his brother and a few other astronauts.

Richard Branson second oldest space traveller

Aged 71, Branson became the second oldest person to head to space, with the previous record being held by John Glen, aboard Friendship 7 capsule, at the age of 77. Glen spent almost nine days on the space shuttle orbiter Discovery, which launched on October 29, 1998.

Sirisha Bandla is third Indian-origin woman in space

Sirisha Bandra, Vice President of Government Affairs and Research Operations at Virgin Galactic, travelled along with Branson and other astronauts. And along the way, she also became the third Indian-origin woman to head to space, after Kalpana Chawla and Sunita Williams.

Virgin Galactic

She was born in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, however, she moved to the US when she was four years old. She completed her Bachelor of Science degree from the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Purdue University in 2011, followed by a Master of Business Administration degree from George Washington University in 2015.

Also Read: Jeff Bezos Will Fly On Blue Origin's 1st Human Spaceflight In July

The first-ever private space tourist flight

Even though space tourism has existed in the past, with passengers going aboard Russian spacecraft to the ISS, this was the first successful attempt of a private space tourism flight, with tourists in them, setting a strong precedent for space tourism in future.

Welcome to the dawn of a new space age #Unity22 @virgingalactic pic.twitter.com/Rlim1UGMkx

¡ª Richard Branson (@richardbranson) July 11, 2021

For a few minutes, 16 humans were in space

Virgin Galactic Unity had Richard Branson, Sirisha Bandla, Beth Moses and Colin Bennett. However, along with astronauts aboard the International Space Station and China¡¯s newly installed module of Tinangong, there were, for a brief moment, 16 humans in space. That¡¯s a new record on its own!