Elon Musk has a ticket to space with Virgin Galactic

Shawn Knight

Shawn Knight

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The big picture: Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson took part in the company’s first crewed spaceflight over the weekend, beating Jeff Bezos and his spaceflight company Blue Origin to the punch by a mere nine days. And soon enough, another well-known tech billionaire will get to experience weightlessness at the edge of space.

A spokesperson for Virgin Galactic recently told The Wall Street Journal that SpaceX founder Elon Musk has a ticket for a trip to space with Galactic. It’s unclear how far down the wait list Musk is, but the company said they’ve made $80 million on ticket sales and deposits thus far.

A single ticket commands for $250,000, we’re told, but if you’re lucky enough, perhaps you could score one courtesy of Galactic’s sweepstakes.

Will Whitehorn, who served as Virgin Galactic’s president until 2010, told Forbes that Musk bought his ticket way back in 2006. “I know because I sold it to him,” Whitehorn added.

One might expect Musk and Branson to be rivals or perhaps even enemies, but that simply isn’t the case. The two are actually friends, and on the morning of Branson’s historic flight, Musk even came for a visit. Branson in a preflight interview told London’s Sunday Times that he might even travel on one of Musk’s ships one day.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/90394-elon-musk-has-ticket-space-virgin-galactic.html

 
Branson is a tax avoider extraordinaire.
Or dodger.
Or rip off merchant.
Or maybe just a t$£t.
 
I wonder if this speaks to the confidence that Musky has in his own company getting him into space? 🤣
 
I was a little disappointed at the coverage .... Branson is usually a MUCH better showman so while he was the first "civilian" the whole thing was a bit of a letdown and frankly, as fast as the thing moves, I don't understand why they didn't make a couple of orbits around the earth ..... just not that much more of a push .....
 
Uncle Al said:
I was a little disappointed at the coverage .... Branson is usually a MUCH better showman so while he was the first "civilian" the whole thing was a bit of a letdown and frankly, as fast as the thing moves, I don't understand why they didn't make a couple of orbits around the earth ..... just not that much more of a push .....
Click to expand...
Its a suborbit vehicle, it cannot actually orbit in space. It goes up and "floats" for about 3 mins and falls back down. Much different than like say Falcon 9
 
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fraggleki said:
Its a suborbit vehicle, it cannot actually orbit in space. It goes up and "floats" for about 3 mins and falls back down. Much different than like say Falcon 9
Click to expand...
Never mind the fuel requirements, I am not sure if the any of the materials of the Virgin Spaceplane can even survive the g-forces and heating from re-entry from an orbital trajectory.
 
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Uncle Al said:
I was a little disappointed at the coverage .... Branson is usually a MUCH better showman so while he was the first "civilian" the whole thing was a bit of a letdown and frankly, as fast as the thing moves, I don't understand why they didn't make a couple of orbits around the earth ..... just not that much more of a push .....
Click to expand...

Because they are afraid (some will say "cautious") . It's just not worth it to them to push it. They were unwilling to leave the Earth's gravity pull.
 
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