Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced earlier this week that
he will be flying to space aboard his space company Blue Origin's New Shephard
vehicle on July 20, accompanied by his brother Mark Bezos.
This was supposed to make senior Bezos the first 'space
billionaire' to actually go into space. But it now seems that another 'space
billionaire' is eyeing the 'first' in this modern space race.
The following day, a report from Douglas Messier, who runs
the longtime space blog Parabolic Arc, indicated that Virgin Galactic may be
racing to launch its own founder, Branson, before Bezos. A "source who
requested anonymity" told Messier that the company plans to fly Branson on
a test flight of its SpaceShipTwo rocket plane over the July 4 weekend. That
would poise Branson to beat Bezos to space by a narrow two weeks.
According to Messier's source, the company began making
those plans in response to Blue Origin setting the date for its first crewed
flight. Blue Origin made that announcement on May 5 - long before Bezos shared
that he would be on board.
Insider was not able to independently confirm Messier's
report. But in a statement to Insider, a spokesperson for Virgin Galactic did
not deny the report's claims.
"At this time, we have not determined the date of our
next flight," the spokesperson said.
Branson's flight is "expected in the summer
months," the spokesperson added, as is a separate test flight with four
"mission specialists" - employees playing the role of future
passengers.
Virgin Galactic has previously stated that the mission
specialists would fly before Branson. But as of Wednesday, the spokesperson did
not respond to a question about which of the two flights would come first.
"One could easily imagine just sort of swapping the
flights, or having Richard Branson fly in one of those four seats, just as a
test subject, if you will," George Nield, a former associate administrator
of the Federal Aviation Administration, where he led its Office of Commercial
Space Transportation, told Insider.
Branson has "been in some pretty risky things in his career," Nield added. "And he obviously believes in this program. If he's comfortable that everything's good and is willing to go himself, then more power to him."
"It's kind of amusing, these billionaires entertaining themselves by being on the first flights of their vehicles," John Logsdon, the founder of George Washington University's Space Policy Institute and a former member of the NASA Advisory Council, told Insider. "Starship is supposed to do an orbital test, too. Is Elon [Musk] going to take the bait and fly on that?"
A SpaceShipTwo space plane returns to Earth after a supersonic flight. Virgin Galactic
Launching Branson by July 4 is 'very doable'
"To me, it looks absolutely very doable," he said,
though he emphasized that he is not privy to communications between Virgin
Galactic and the FAA, which licenses commercial rocket launches.
Virgin Galactic might have to modify its license with the
FAA in order to fly Branson. The modification would allow the company to fly
"participants" as well as crew members (in this case, pilots and
mission specialists). But Nield says that modification would be simple and
quick, as long as the data from the last flight doesn't reveal any major
issues.
"The change in the license is just to say: 'delete
paragraph five,'" Nield said. "So it's not a big deal."
Branson could even get a new role as a crew member - acting
as a mission specialist, for example. Then Virgin Galactic may not have to
modify its license at all in order to fly him.
"In my opinion, there is nothing preventing Richard
Branson from also flying as a member of the flight crew," Nield said.
"He is an employee of the company, and they can assign him whatever duties
they want to. That's not something the FAA gets involved in. That's up to the
company."
When Insider asked about the report, an FAA spokesperson
declined to comment on whether Virgin Galactic was pursuing a launch next
month. Instead, the agency pointed out the "participant" license
modification.
It's not clear how much Virgin Galactic would have to change
or speed up its original plans in order to get Branson to space before Bezos.
"If you hurry there's always the possibility of cutting
corners, but the people that are managing the flight have a pretty high
incentive not to kill their boss," Logsdon said.
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