The 70-year-old defeated his competitor and the richest man in contemporary history, Jeff Bezos, who is scheduled to reach space in roughly nine days. Branson remarked that his “boldest” adventure is the result of “seventeen years of hard effort” by his staff.
He first announced his plans to build a space plane in 2004, estimating that he could begin commercial service in three years, but it took an extra decade.
In his own spaceship, the British billionaire became the first person to reach space. He also earned the distinction of becoming the second septuagenarian to fly into space, following John Glenn, who travelled on the shuttle for the first time at the age of 77.
He published a ‘out of this world’ photo on Twitter, in which he can be seen floating weightlessly in the ship’s stateroom. The caption reads, “Welcome to the Dawn of a New Space Age.”
A twin-fuselage aeroplane with its space plane attached took off first in the first stage of the flight, after which the space plane separated and activated its engine.
Meanwhile, Branson, who hopes to usher in a new era of profitable space tourism, added, “I’ve taken my notebook with me and I’ve written down 30 or 40 tiny things that will make the next person who goes to space with us that much better.”
“The only way to find these minor things occasionally is to get in a spaceship and go to space and experience it for yourself” , he adds.
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, also arrived in New Mexico to see the trip, wishing Branson ‘Godspeed’ on Twitter. Musk, on the other hand, has stated that he will not be travelling into space any time soon.
