According to reports from The Wall Street Journal, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has purchased a ticket to board Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo when it takes a second trip into space later this year.
Apparently Musk had purchased his $250,000 ticket before Branson embarked on his first trip to the edge of space on Sunday and is one out of nearly 600 people who’ve purchased tickets to board SpaceShipTwo. The company has collected $80 million in sales and deposits so far.
“Thank you for being so typically supportive and such a good friend, Elon. Great to be opening up space for all – safe travels and see you at Spaceport America!” tweeted Branson in response to which Musk replied “Will see you there to wish you the best.”
On Sunday, Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity had ascended almost 86 kilometres to reach the edge of space with Branson and three employees before landing safely back on Earth. On board was Beth Moses, Chief Astronaut Instructor Colin Bennett, Lead Operations Engineer and Virgin Galactic’s Vice President of Government Affairs Sirisha Bandla. It was the spacecraft’s 22nd test flight and the first test flight with a full crew in the cabin.
The 70 year old billionaire described it as the “experience of a lifetime”.
Aiming to launch two more flights this year, Virgin Galactic is planning on starting commercial flights in early 2022 and hopes to launch 400 flights per year.
Branson who is good friends with Musk also mentioned in an interview to the Sunday Times “Elon’s a friend and maybe I’ll travel on one of his ships one day.”
Will he be paying for his ticket in dollars or dogecoins though? As Musk’s SpaceX will be launching its own DOGE-1 mission to the moon in 2022 and it will be fully funded by the dogecoin cryptocurrency.
Musk may end up being the third billionaire to reach space as Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos is planning to board his Blue Origin rocket to space which takes off in a weeks’ time on July 20.
Based on Monday’s Wall Street Journal report, it’s unclear which flight Musk will be boarding as we don’t know how high on the waiting list he is for a seat so we’ll update you when we know more.
