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British entrepreneur Richard Branson announced on Thursday his intention to travel into space on July 11. He would do so aboard a ship of his company Virgin Galactic. In this way, Branson would be ahead of the plans of the owner and founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, who has scheduled his trip to space for the 20th.
If successful, Branson would become the first billionaire to be part of a partly self-funded manned mission to space.
“I’ve always been a dreamer. My mum taught me to never give up and to reach for the stars. On July 11, it’s time to turn that dream into reality aboard Virgin Galactic’s next space flight,” the entrepreneur said on Twitter.
Richard Branson’s mission
The mission is named “Unity 22,” after the 22nd test flight of the VSS Unity aircraft, and will have two pilots and four crew members, including Branson.
The three crew members accompanying Branson are astronaut Beth Moses; engineer Colin Bennett and a company vice-president, Sirisha Bandla.
In early June, Jeff Bezos announced that he will go into space on the first manned voyage of his company Blue Origin.
