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Richard Branson on Sunday in his VSS Unity spaceplane - weightless, around 80 kilometers above the surface of the earth - and, this was important to the entrepreneur, first, ahead of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Tesla boss Elon Musk.
Marc Pitzke, DER SPIEGEL
»The first space flight of a billionaire, self-financed or financed by shareholders, here over the hot skies of New Mexico.
Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin, won this race of the richest into space with his company Virgin Galactic.
He has brought his flight forward.
Ten days before Jeff Bezos. "
Together with two astronauts and three astronauts, the 70-year-old set out from the commercial spaceport Spaceport America and finally raced towards space at three times the speed of sound.
Marc Pitzke, DER SPIEGEL
»The play here lasted 90 minutes, then it was over again. The space glider was lifted into the sky by a mothership, as they call it here, the mothership named after Branson's mother Eve, and then disengaged. And then the thing came under its own power to the limit of space, the universe. Then there was a few minutes of weightlessness, then it reversed and it landed here again under its own power on a runway here in the desert directly in front of us. You could see that right. Technologically that was pretty spectacular. "
Branson's lavishly staged trip to the edge of space is just the beginning: The entrepreneur plans - like his competitors - to enter the space tourism business.
In 2022, the 18-meter-long space glider is expected to transport the first paying guests.
Marc Pitzke, DER SPIEGEL
“The question, of course, is: what's the point? With the money you could buy many, many corona vaccinations for the rest of the world, which is not doing so well. That could alleviate poverty, here in the US and elsewhere. Especially now after Corona, after the pandemic, where the poverty gap has widened so widely, it seems a bit like an ego project of a rich man who can afford everything and otherwise has no toys. And this criticism has also been heard here. This criticism is certainly justified, of course, but it's a little more complicated than that. I spoke to the mayor of Las Cruces, which is the closest town here, an hour's drive away. He is of course very enthusiastic. He's hoping that this will be something like the Spacecoast in Florida near Cape Canaveral.Of course, many other companies moved there in the course of space travel. Tech companies, IT companies, Silicon Valley. Companies. Service companies. "
The spaceport was financed by taxpayers' money - a bet on the future.
A space flight from Branson's company is said to cost US $ 250,000, and there are already hundreds of reservations.
Richard Branson, Entrepreneur
“Like many people, I've dreamed of this since I was a kid.
Nothing can prepare you for this outlook on earth.
It was just magical.
[...] We want to make the universe more accessible for everyone.
We want to turn the dreamers into the next generation of astronauts, today and tomorrow. "
Marc Pitzke, DER SPIEGEL
»Today at least a huge success of them and an ego success.
He'll be 71 next week.
You can't take that away from him.
That is quite a highlight.
But you have to wait and see if the rest of the world actually benefits. "
The next start in the billionaires race is scheduled for July 20th. Then Amazon founder Jeff Bezos wants to go on a trip to space with his brother, among other things.