Virgin Galactic’s first true space tourism launches

This week marks an important week for Virgin Galactic. Richard Branson’s space company brought real space tourists to the edge of space on Thursday afternoon for the first time in its history. So these are people who pay to take that space ride.

Virgin Galactic

A ticket for that flight to the edge of space is 410,000 euros, which means that space tourism is mainly for the 1%. However, it is something that Branson sees bread in: he has been working for decades to make this happen and to make money from space and the science that ensures that people go to space and return safely. People travel to the edge of space because they can feel weightlessness there, but can also easily return to our planet.

The journey is quite short: they fly 85 kilometers in an hour and a half, are weightless for a few minutes and then return to earth again. The debut of this space ride was for Galactic 01, a group of four people, two of whom are from the Italian Air Force, who research microgravity. So on the one hand it’s not all just for fun. Moreover, the argument for having space tourism is also that it is not just for fun, but also for the income that can be put into the research and development of new, hopefully more sustainable techniques for going into space.

Space tourism

It is good for the travelers that their trip finally went ahead, because that has taken a lot of effort. VIrgin Galactic has lost a co-pilot during a test problem in the last decade and then all sorts of investigations were started to find out if that company is completely pure coffee and is proceeding with caution. Galactic 01 was supposed to leave at the end of 2021, but the launch was postponed a few times. Moreover, Virgin is also not doing well financially: 500 million dollars was the loss of the company last year. Bizarre numbers, though befitting a cowboy entrepreneur like Branson, who is not only smart enough to keep going, but also rich enough.