Virgin Galactic Sends First Tourist Flight to Edge of Space

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Image copyright: Virgin Galactic [via Wikimedia Commons]

The Facts

  • Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic sent its first space tourists — former British Olympian Jon Goodwin and a mother-daughter duo from the Caribbean — to the edge of space Thursday after nearly two decades of delays.

  • The rocket-powered space plane, VSS Unity, launched at 8:30 a.m. MST from Virgin Galactic's spaceport in New Mexico, attached beneath the wing of its massive twin-fuselage mothership, the VMS Eve.

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The Spin

Narrative A

Virgin Galactic's historic mission of sending three tourists into space is revolutionary in the fascinating and nascent space tourism industry. While it may have taken a while to come together, the trip was worth the wait. Now Richard Branson's company can fly out tourists monthly and eventually weekly as Virgin Galactic makes history.

Mirror

Narrative B

Eighteen years after one of its passengers bought his ticket, Virgin Galactic finally sent its first set of tourists to "space." Well, it flew them at very high altitudes. While it was impressive to see the company's aircraft fly so high, it wasn't a trip to space. Virgin Galactic has made progress in its mission to send people to space but still has a long way to go to fulfill its promise.

Futurism

Metaculus Prediction