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Richard Branson hopes to go into space on a SpaceX rocket
Entrepreneur and billionaire Sir Richard Branson has announced that he would like to take a trip on a SpaceX rocket after flying into space less than a year ago in a spacecraft owned by his own company Virgin Galactic, CNBC reports. Branson says he has been friends with SpaceX founder Elon Musk for a long time, and he hopes the two can swap places one day so that he can board a SpaceX ship and Musk, in turn, into space on a Virgin Galactic rocket will fly.
The billionaire made his first foray into space in July 2021, almost two decades after Virgin Galactic was founded. The Federal Aviation Administration recently honored the astronauts of Virgin Galactic’s Unity 22 flight crew. These included Branson, Sirisha Bandla and Colin Bennett, all of whom were awarded wing badges for crossing the 50-mile mark, which is considered by the United States to be the official limit to space. SpaceX started sending astronauts into space again in 2020 and has so far successfully carried 18 people across the border to space. According to Branson, his good friend Elon Musk bought a ticket on a Virgin Galactic flight a long time ago.
A lot has happened at Virgin Galactic lately
Branson’s company Virgin Galactic is currently busy with the extensive renovation of the spaceship VSS Unity and the carrier aircraft VMS Eve. The company delayed its commercial space tourism program to the fourth quarter of 2022 last year. In February, Virgin Galactic announced that the cleanup work was on track and expected to be completed in the third quarter.
In addition, the space company has been repositioned both in terms of corporate structure and branding by its new CEO, Michael Colglazier, who was appointed in July 2020. Earlier this year, then-CEO Chamath Palihapitiya resigned from his post.
Richard Branson himself has sold a large amount of his stock since the company went public, but remains the largest shareholder. According to CNBC, the billionaire wants to scale back his personal involvement with Virgin Galactic, but has vowed to keep his involvement with the company going forward.
Thomas Weschle / Editor finanzen.net
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