17^th July: Richard Branson, the billionaire, made the first tourist space flight in history on July 11. His company’s Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity flight was destined for the Earth-space border. Despite the fact that the Briton has achieved a historic milestone, some, including famous astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, a disciple of Carl Sagan, doubt that he has truly traveled to space.

The spacecraft launched around 8:40 a.m. on Sunday. (local time) from New Mexico’s Spaceport America. The spacecraft released the space plane carrying Richard Branson and the crew after flying for an hour at a height of 15 kilometers above the Earth’s surface. The plane’s goal was to reach the limit between space and Earth, which would be 80 kilometers high, as set by the US government. The sky turns from blue to black at this point, revealing the planet’s curvature and allowing you to float weightlessly. VSS Unity successfully landed in New Mexico at 9:38 a.m. after spending several minutes in orbit local time.

Richard Branson, according to astrophysicist, and director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center Earth and Space did not go on a space mission, according to CNN. “First of all, it was suborbital. NASA did it 60 years ago with Alan Shepard, took off from Cape Canaveral, and landed in the ocean. If you don’t go fast enough to reach orbit you will fall and return to Earth, ” deGrasse explained.

Then, using a globe, Neil deGrasse Tyson demonstrated how high the International Space Station and a spacecraft orbit are. In terms of scale, their orbit would be one centimeter away from the scale model, while the moon would be more than ten meters distant. Branson’s boundary, on the other hand, is less than 2 millimeters from the surface. On the other hand, Carl Sagan’s student believes that Elon Musk’s aerospace company and idea have greater value.

Whether or whether Sir Richard Branson has technically been to space, his achievement ushers in a new age in space tourism. Jeff Bezos of Amazon is set to accomplish the same with a ship from his business Blue Origin in less than a week.

Image source: flipboard.com

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