British billionaire Richard Branson, chairman of the Virgin Group, succeeded in a space tourism test flight.



Branson flew into the sky at around 7:40 a.m. local time on the 11th (based on the western United States) aboard Virgin Galactic's spaceship 'VSS Unity', which he founded.



'VSS Unity' took off from the Spaceport Space Center in New Mexico on the mother ship 'VMS Eve' with over 500 people watching, and landed safely on the ground an hour later, Associated Press reported.



In 'Unity', two Virgin Galactic pilots and three executives were on board.



Branson, who is celebrating his 71st birthday on the 18th, signed an astronaut journal before boarding and wrote "Astronaut Double-oh one. License to thrill" reminiscent of '007' James Bond. .



When 'Eve' hung 'Unity' under the fuselage and reached an altitude of 13.6 km, 'Unity' separated from 'Eve' and flew toward the edge of the universe at a speed of Mach 3, which is three times the speed of sound.



Branson reached an altitude of 88.5 km and returned to Earth after experiencing a 'microgravity' state with almost no gravity for about 4 minutes.



When he got off Unity, Branson clenched his fists and hugged his family, and the crowd cheered in celebration.



Branson said "It has been 17 years of hard work to get us here,” he said, congratulating the Virgin Galactic team for successfully making a space tourism test flight.



With this, Branson set a milestone for his first appearance in the 'Star Wars 3', which is being waged by billionaires.



Amazon's Jeff Bezos, along with his brother Mark and 82-year-old Wally Funk, will go on a space tour to commemorate the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing on the 20th.



Space X, a space exploration company founded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, will also take on an orbital flight around the Earth with four people on a spacecraft in September.



However, Musk has never said that he intends to board the spaceship himself.



Bezos posted on Instagram, saying, "Congratulations on the flight," and that he wants to join the 'Space Tourism Club' as soon as possible. Musk took a commemorative photo together before Branson's departure from the New Mexico launch site. I posted this on Twitter.



Bezos, however, has recently been in a nerve war, emphasizing that Blue Origin's rockets fly higher than Branson's spaceplanes.



The European International Aeronautics and Space Federation defines space as space when it crosses the 'Karman Line', which is at an altitude of 100 km, but Bezos pointed out that Branson's space tourism does not meet this standard.



However, Virgin Galactic is of the view that there is no problem at all, given that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) see altitudes above 80 km as the standard for space.



Musk, who is pursuing civilian space orbital flights and migrating to Mars, recently tweeted, "There's a big difference between reaching space and going to (farther) orbit." evaluated as



(Photo = Getty Images Korea)