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The sky above the Spaceport American in Las Cruces, New Mexico, was on fire last night. The storm was fierce enough to postpone Virgin Galactic’s planned deployment of its twin airships, the mothership Eve and a space vehicle called VSS Unit, from their hangar. The delay meant that the scheduled take-off today, which would send a crew on Unit 50 miles above Earth, would be pushed back 90 minutes.
But regardless, Richard Branson still had plenty of time to beat Jeff Bezos in space.
And he did. At 9.25 am MT, approximately 45 minutes after taking off from the spaceport at the delayed time, the spaceship making up the duo, Unit, was ready to be released from Eve. Branson and five of his colleagues – two pilots, three other mission specialists – were on board. Branson waited for the rocket motor to ignite with a frozen smile on his face. Then the fire erupted from the vehicle and in just under two minutes it reached altitude. Branson was at the edge of space, about 50 miles above the ground. Fifteen minutes later, Branson and his team were back on Earth, ready to explain how Virgin Galactic would deliver an identical experience to anyone willing to pay around $ 250,000. Hundreds are already on the waiting list.
Branson is the king of the show, so it’s no surprise the launch felt like a festival. In the hours leading up to launch, Branson’s Twitter feed, as well as those of his colleagues, was filled with fluid videos meant to depict a hero’s journey. We saw him arrive at the spaceport by bike – cross the Atlantic on pedals? “You are late !” they told him. “Put on your outfits!”
A longer version of the video showed them signing a logbook, with Branson identifying himself as Astronaut 001. The founder of Virgin Galactic posted a photo of a welcome observer at the launch, Elon Musk. As Branson made his way to the launch pad, he was surrounded by jubilant spectators; he interrupted his walk with his fists to sign some souvenirs offered by the little children. The live stream itself was co-hosted by Stephen Colbert. Behind the scenes, Khalid, who had written a song, “New Normal”, was to be unveiled at the end of the ride.
The only disappointment was that the media king’s live stream in the capsule failed during the two-minute space trip. Onlookers were denied the sight of Branson and his teammates spinning in weightless bliss. (The closest we got was about three seconds of heavily pixelated limbs waving.) We also haven’t heard from the British Entrepreneur during his gravity-free time. “We will be sure to capture his magic words and share them with the world when they become available,” one of Virgin’s commentators said on the live stream.
Behind today’s Virgin Galactic flight lies a not-so-hot and hazy competition between billionaires. After a successful crewed test flight in May, Virgin Galactic’s plan was to have three more test flights this year with Branson on the second of them. But after Bezos announced he would be one of the passengers on Blue Origin’s first crewed flight, Branson quickly changed Virgin’s schedule. Unit would resume flight on July 11, with the company’s fastest turnaround ever. And Branson would be on board, with a cabin full of his employees. In addition to the personal risk, there was a financial risk: Virgin Galactic became a public company in late 2019 by merging with an existing company on the stock exchange, and an unsuccessful theft would screw up the pooch, in terms of stock price.
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