Virgin Galactic test flight: childhood dream of a billionaire

Today Richard Branson wants to launch into space. Childhood dreams play a role, as does the billionaires race. For Branson’s company Virgin Galactic, it’s about the billion dollar space tourism market.

In slow motion, billionaire Richard Branson walks down a corridor in an astronaut suit. He announces via video that he will fly into space with his crew. Space belongs to everyone, says Branson in the video. He wants to enable more people to become astronauts.

Space tourism is what Branson is about, as is his worst competitor in the field – ex-Amazon boss Jeff Bezos. He wants to venture a short excursion into space on July 20th. “At some point we had to stop accepting bookings,” said Branson in an interview with the radio network NPR. 600 people have already registered for a flight. Right now, it’s up to $ 250,000.

Billions in space tourism

On Branson’s flight today, an anonymous bidder paid $ 28 million to be there. So there are paying customers, despite the dizzying prices. There is obviously money to be made with excursions into space. At least this is the conclusion reached by the Swiss bank UBS. It released a report that space travel could represent a $ 3 billion market by 2030.

In the long term, says Branson, the aim is of course to lower the prices for the tickets. “In the 1920s, air travel was something for the super-rich. Decade after decade, prices went down, now many can afford it. We’ll be able to lower prices too,” he says.

Billionaires fulfill their childhood dreams

Space flights are risky, difficult to calculate and expensive. This is another reason why it is clear that the motivation to fly into space is more than just discovering a new business area. The billionaires buy such an absolute childhood dream.

Bezos, for example, tells in a video on his Instagram channel that he has wanted to fly into space all his life – and is now even taking his brother on the first flight. In addition, there is undeniably the competition among the super-rich space pioneers. The fact that Branson surprisingly wants to fly into space in front of Bezos was seen by many observers as a clear swipe.

NASA benefits

There is already a clear winner in the race into space: the US space agency NASA. She is happy that the companies are making space travel cheaper and more independent from other countries, explains former astronaut Thomas David Jones at Bloomberg. “After the space shuttle program was discontinued, there was no way for the US to get to the space station unless with rockets that we rented from the Russians. With the SpaceX Crew Dragon we were able to free ourselves from this monopoly,” says Jones.

SpaceX also wants to enter the space tourism business from 2023. For the coming year, the US company Axiom Space, together with SpaceX and NASA, has planned a tourist space flight to the ISS.