Roll your eyes if you must, but the private space industry has a winner: On Sunday morning, Virgin’s Sir Richard Branson beat Amazon’s Jeff Bezos in becoming the first private industrialist to send himself into space in his own vehicle. (Elon Musk, who rounds out the trio of interplanetary billionaires with his company, SpaceX, has indicated he’s interested in leaving this earthly realm but isn’t in a rush.)
The space plane Unity, the lone operational Virgin SpaceShipTwo vehicle, successfully sent six astronauts into suborbital flight, meaning they didn’t reach orbit, but it’s still technically space. Unity was launched from Virgin Galactic’s Spaceport America in New Mexico. The VMS (Virgin Mothership) Eve carried the vehicle up 50,000 feet, then dropped it for separation. At that point, Unity’s rocket hybrid motor boosted the plane with a mixture of solid and liquid propellant.
Unity then climbed to its target 50 miles above the ground, achieving four minutes of weightlessness before its descent.
At the helm of Unity 22 (this is the vehicle’s 22nd mission, but fourth to enter space) were pilots Dave Mackay and Michael “Sooch” Masucci. Joining them were Virgin Galactic’s VP of Government Affairs and Research Operations Sirisha Bandla, who conducted a science experiment involving handheld fixation tubes, Colin Bennett, the Lead Operations Engineer at Virgin, on hand to evaluate cabin equipment, and Beth Cohen, the Chief Astronaut at Virgin, who will aid future private travelers, many of whom have already booked passage with Virgin Galactic to the tune of $250,000 per seat.
But all eyes were on one specific crew member: Richard Branson, the former record shop owner turned entertainment mogul. (His first substantial hit came from investing in the instrumental prog rock symphony Tubular Bells by Michael Oldfield). In a pre-recorded video, Branson signed the Virgin Galactic registry as Astronaut 001 (“licensed to thrill”) in a snazzy blue uniform. Beth Moses, who has been on a previous test flight, signed in as Astronaut 002.
Stephen Colbert, long recognized for his exuberance in dorky fields, gushed about Virgin Galactic as host of the launch. He got a little misty-eyed about the crew gazing down at the pale blue dot of Earth while traveling at Mach 3.5, then joked about getting stuck in a middle seat. Before he handed things over to Virgin engineer Veronica McGowan—who wore awesome rocket earrings and said, “space is now Virgin territory!”—he shared a clip reel of #dissbombs that Colbert “in character” had lobbed at Branson over the years. Such moments included Colbert and Branson spraying one another with fire extinguishers. Colbert also mocked Branson’s failed soda brand.
As Unity safely landed back at Spaceport America, R&B singer Kalid debuted a new track called “New Normal.”
There’s still a consolation prize for Bezos. Unity’s altitude is classified as “space” by NASA and the U.S. military. However, the United Nations considers the Kármán Line, twelve miles higher, as the official threshold. Bezos’s Blue Origin vehicle, poised to launch in 19 days, will cross it. So there.
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