« I truly believe that space belongs to all of us, » Branson says. But it probably helps to be rich.
While the rest of the world continues battling the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic and attempts to establish a new normal after being locked away in our homes for more than a year, Virgin Group founder/business magnate caricature Richard Branson is plotting out how to beat that dastardly Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in becoming the first billionaire to go to space. Yes, while you’re spending 10 minutes agonizing over whether or not you should spring for the extra $2.50 to add pepperoni to your pizza, billionaires are… doing this. On Tuesday, Virgin Galactic announced that the window for the next test flight of its SpaceShipTwo Unity opens on July 11, and that Branson will be onboard as one of the flight’s Mission Specialists. Though it will be the vessel’s twenty-second test flight, hence the mission being dubbed “Unity 22,” it will only be its fourth manned spaceflight and the very first to be fully crewed.
