11101
Full Member
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2014
- Messages
- 21,328
First of all we had Jeff Bezos planning to fly himself, his brother, a random rich guy who paid $28 million, and an 82 year old to orbit on July 20th.
Now Richard Branson is trying to beat him to it with a sub orbital flight on 11 July with some of his friends - https://www.space.com/virgin-galactic-richard-branson-vss-unity-flight
Notwithstanding sub orbital flight has about 1% of the difficulty of orbital flight, it's all getting a bit weird. Across the whole lot there's only two test pilots and no actual astronauts in sight. The rest are sightseers. Elon Musk for his faults doesn't mess around. Everybody on his flights so far have been properly qualified and experienced astronauts.
Now Richard Branson is trying to beat him to it with a sub orbital flight on 11 July with some of his friends - https://www.space.com/virgin-galactic-richard-branson-vss-unity-flight
Notwithstanding sub orbital flight has about 1% of the difficulty of orbital flight, it's all getting a bit weird. Across the whole lot there's only two test pilots and no actual astronauts in sight. The rest are sightseers. Elon Musk for his faults doesn't mess around. Everybody on his flights so far have been properly qualified and experienced astronauts.