Reports: Elon Musk will fly to space with Virgin Galactic

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SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has booked a flight into suborbital space with Virgin Galactic, according to media reports.

Richard Branson, the founding billionaire of Virgin Group, made a similar flight on Sunday (July 11), flying the first fully manned spaceflight from Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity spaceplane. This was the fourth space flight overall for the six-passenger and two-pilot Unity plane, which is on track to begin full commercial operations in early 2022, provided some additional test flights this fall go well.

Branson told the Sunday Times that Musk placed a $10,000 deposit to reserve a seat on a future suborbital flight, and a Virgin Galactic spokesperson confirmed the news to the Wall Street Journal. (The last advertised ticket price is $250,000.) It is unclear when Musk’s trip will take place.

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“Elon is a friend, and I may be traveling on one of his ships one day,” Branson, 70, told the Sunday Times. (SpaceX’s Crew Dragon goes into Earth orbit, and the Starship system in development is designed to carry people and payloads to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.)

Musk was on hand to witness Branson’s flight, which took off from Spaceport America in New Mexico, the commercial hub for Virgin Galactic. In the hours leading up to that early Sunday flight, in fact, Branson posted a photo of himself on Twitter standing next to Musk with no shoes.

“Great day. Great to start the morning with a friend. Feeling good, feeling excited and ready,” Branson wrote in a tweet.

Another billionaire is scheduled to travel to suborbital space next week. Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos will ride the first manned spaceflight of his company’s New Shepard spacecraft, which is scheduled for July 20, the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Also traveling with Bezos’ brother Mark, pilot pilot Wally Funk and the still-mysterious auction winner who paid $28 million for the seat next to them.

Musk is the richest or second-richest person in the world (behind Bezos), depending on the day the evaluation is done, so he’s definitely wealthy enough to sample various subtropical offerings. (Blue Origin hasn’t revealed ticket prices, but they’re expected to be in the lower six figures.) Given the long-running competition between Musk and Bezos, however, it would be surprising to see the SpaceX chief climb inside the new Shepherd anytime Nearby.

Mike Wall is the author of Out There (Great Grand Publishing House, 2018; illustrated by Carl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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