Richard Branson is still expected to go to space on Virgin Galactic’s first fully crewed space flight today, although the launch has been delayed by 90 minutes due to overnight weather.
Thunderstorms caused the launch of Unity22 to be postponed to 10:30 am ET (Canada/US, 3:30 pm in the UK) from the previously scheduled 9 am flight time.
Branson will travel with three mission specialists from a base in New Mexico to fulfill his childhood dream.
Branson posted a picture of himself with a barefooted Elon Musk, both billionaires dressed in T-shirts and jeans. Branson tweeted that it was a “Big day ahead. Great to start the morning with a friend. Feeling good, feeling excited, feeling ready.”
Musk and Branson are in a three-way billionaire race to space with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, each of them creating their own companies to build their own rockets for their journey. Musk showed his support for Branson by showing up at the site of today launch in the desert ahead of Branson. It has also been said Musk bought a $10,000 ticket for a seat on a future Virgin Galactic flight.
The history-making launch will be live-streamed on Branson’s account on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/cherrylbird_unity22-activity-6819974931451822081-PUBZ
New launch time for #UNITY22 on July 11, 2021:
TODAY at 7:30 am PT | 10:30 am ET | 3:30 pm BST. Live broadcast.
by Cherryl Bird – Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Twitter @ladycbird | Instagram @cherrylbird
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