So I am watching Richard Branson in his Unity 22 spacecraft this morning. He is at 46,375 feet in his ship ready to launch from the mother ship. If you do know, Virgin Galactic’s approach is to launch while in flight attached to another plane. This makes sense as they do not have to worry about the payload requirements to lift off of Earth’s surface. Quietly while the rest of the world has their head in their phones, the world’s billionaires have entered into their own space race. Elon Musk with SpaceX, Richard Branson with TheSpaceShipCompany and Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin.
Just finished. Richard Branson, in a company he created, a rocketship that he paid for, just hit Mach 3 and launched up to 275,000 feet and gained altitude to qualify by NASA as actually being in “space.” So the fight is real now. Branson made history books. Bezos will argue that it really was not space, but that is ok. He can prove himself better by being the first to spend an entire evolution around Earth in his own manufactured craft. Perhaps Musk will be the first to spend the night on the moon, who knows.
Sort of surreal that we live in a time where we may actually start to see intergalactic space travel become a reality. SpaceX has a rocketship that can take off and land at the same point and I just finished Virgin Galactic Unity 22 land safely in New Mexico. Incredible. What is next?
Guy Reams
