Richard Branson is ahead of Jeff Bezos and announces that he will be the first billionaire to travel to space

07/02/2021 10:27

• Clarín.com

• Technology

Updated 07/02/2021 10:27

Richard Branson

aims to get to space before billionaire Jeff Bezos.

Virgin Galactic

, the Branson company, announced Thursday that its next test flight will be on July 11 and that its founder will be one of six people on board.

The spacecraft will take off from New Mexico, and will be

the first to carry a

full

team

of company employees

.

The news came hours after Bezos's company Blue Origin indicated that the Amazon founder would be escorted into space

on July 20 by an aerospace pioneer

who waited 60 years to get off the ground.

Bezos selected July 20 as the launch date from West Texas, the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Just a month ago he decided he would go on the flight, the last leg in

a space race between the two moguls.

The Amazon founder will go on the first manned launch of Blue Origin, accompanied by his brother, by the winner of a charity auction that paid 28 million dollars, and by Wall Funk, one of the last survivors of the Mercury 13 that was selected as "Honor guest''.

All 13 pilots passed the same tests as the Mercury 7 astronauts in the early 1960s, but

were barred from being part of the corps and spaceflight 

because they are women.

The team that will travel into space: Dave Mackay, Colin Bennett, Beth Moses, Richard Branson, Sirisha Bandla, and Michael Masucci.

Photo EFE

As of Wednesday, Branson

had declined

to say when he would go into space due to restrictions imposed by his company.

But he stressed that he was "fit and healthy" to fly as soon as his engineers cleared it.

"I've always been a dreamer

. My mom taught me never to give up and reach for the stars. July 11 is the time to make that dream a reality aboard the next VirginGalactic," he tweeted.

I've always been a dreamer.

My mum taught me to never give up and to reach for the stars.

On July 11, it's time to turn that dream into a reality aboard the next @VirginGalactic spaceflight https://t.co/x0ksfnuEQ3 # Unity22 pic.twitter.com/GWskcMSXyA

- Richard Branson (@richardbranson) July 1, 2021

Virgin Galactic launches its space rocket from an aircraft, reaching an altitude of approximately 88 kilometers (55 miles).

Blue Origin launches its New Shepard rocket from the ground

, and its capsule reaches about 106 kilometers (66 miles) high.

Both altitudes are considered the edge of space.

By comparison, Elon Musk's SpaceX launches its "both manned and cargo" capsules into Earth orbit.

The three private space companies plan to take clients into space.

SpaceX will be the first to do so with a private flight in September.

Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin flights last approximately 10 minutes, with about three minutes of weightlessness.

But the comebacks are quite different:

Virgin Galactic's rocket plane

glides onto a runway, like the old NASA space shuttles did, with a couple of pilots at the helm.

Automated Blue Origin capsules parachute into the desert, similar to the landing of NASA's Mercury, Gemini and Apollo capsules.

Their spaceports are only

320 kilometers

apart from each other.

Bezos vs.

Branson

The space race, in which Elon Musk also enters.

AFP photo

The battle between the two competitors is accompanied

by a media war.

Jeff Bezos hit hard this Thursday by presenting his "honor" passenger for the July 20 flight.

This is the pioneer aviator Wally Funk, 82, who will accompany the billionaire

on the first manned space flight of the Blue Origin company.

The trip comes 60 years late for Funk, who was one of the "Mercury 13", the first women trained by the US space agency

NASA to fly into space between 1960 and 1961

, but excluded for gender reasons.

In a video posted to Bezos' Instagram account on the occasion of the announcement, Funk noted that "I said I wanted to be an astronaut. But no one wanted to take me. I didn't think I would ever go there."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jeff Bezos (@jeffbezos)

 "No one has waited that long," Bezos wrote.

"Welcome to the crew, Wally."

Funk, who was also the first female inspector of the United States aviation agency, the FAA,

will become the oldest person to go to space

- so far that record is held by 77-year-old American astronaut John Glenn. - when traveling aboard the New Shepard ship with Bezos and his brother Mark.

Also going is the unidentified winner of an auction, who paid $ 28 million for the seat.

The launch is scheduled on the date of the

52nd anniversary of the Apollo moon landing in 1969

by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

Ironically, Wally Funk also bought a ticket years ago to fly into space with Virgin Galactic.

SL

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