Sir Richard Branson beat Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos to become the first billionaire to go into space. He used his spaceship VSS Unity to arrive at the beginning of space in July 2021. Late yesterday his Virgin Galactic company successfully started their first commercial space travel service Galactic 01.
This puts Branson behind Bezos and Musk who both successfully sent paying customers into space via the New Shepard and Crew Dragon spacecraft.
The Virgin Galactic mission takes three national passengers to a maximum height of 85 km to feel themselves floating without gravity. This remained for several minutes before Unity returned to earth and landed at Spaceport America.
Branson has been offering Virgin Galactic cruise tickets since the project was announced a decade ago for $450,000 per person. Currently Virgin Galactic can only do one launch into space a month. Four launches per month will only be possible with the new spacecraft expected to be operational in 2026.
Travel to space is already offered by Roscosmos with Dennis Tito becoming the first space tourist in 2001. Since then the dream of becoming an astronaut can become a reality if you have enough money.