Virgin Galactic carries first tourists to the edge of Space
Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. carried its first private tourists to the edge of space, a long-awaited milestone in founder Richard Branson's quest to build a “spaceline for Earth.”
The VSS Unity craft reached space shortly before 9:30 a.m. local time Thursday, Virgin Galactic said on a livestream of the event, roughly an hour after it took off from a New Mexico spaceport. The tourist mission, which offered passengers several minutes of weightlessness before descending back to solid ground, was the company's second commercial flight following a recent research operation.
“They are officially astronauts,” Virgin Galactic's Sirisha Bandla, who provided commentary during the flight, said on the livestream. “Welcome to space.”
The suborbital joyride caps nearly two decades of development work and allows Virgin Galactic to finally begin clearing a backlog of roughly 800 ticket holders who have been waiting for rides to space. Virgin Galactic is competing against Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin to sell trips to thrill-seekers looking to briefly shed Earth's gravity, the driving reason the company was first created.
The passengers included 80-year-old Jon Goodwin, a British former Olympian who has Parkinson's Disease, as well as Keisha Schahaff and Anastatia Mayers, a mother-daughter pair from the Caribbean who won their seats through a charity drawing. They were joined by two pilots and a Virgin Galactic support astronaut.
Virgin Galactic's shares rose 1.8% to $3.44 as of 11:27 a.m. in New York, paring an earlier gain of as much as 3.8%. The stock was down nearly 3% this year through Wednesday and remains well below the highs of more than $55 in 2021. It was publicly listed through a reverse merger with a special purpose acquisition
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