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Richard Branson reaches house on Virgin Galactic flight

Richard Branson reaches space on Virgin Galactic flight

After nearly 17 years of development and over a billion dollars invested in Virgin Galactic, Sir Richard Branson achieved his dream and reached space.

From the cabin of the spaceship, Branson spoke of space flight as “the complete experience of a lifetime”.

“This is the moment I dreamed of as a child, and to be honest, nothing can prepare you for a view of Earth from space,” said Branson after landing.

The company’s VSS Unity spacecraft launched over the New Mexico skies on Sunday, with two pilots driving the vehicle with the billionaire founder and three Virgin Galactic employees. VSS Unity – after it was released over 40,000 feet by a carrier aircraft called the VMS Eve – ignited its rocket motor and accelerated to more than three times the speed of sound as it ascended to the edge of space.

Sir Richard Branson stands on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in front of the trading of Virgin Galactic (SPCE) in New York, USA, 28 October 2019.

Richard Branson Virgin Galactic IPO NYSE

VSS Unity then performed a slow backflip in weightlessness as the Virgin Galactic crew were weightless and floating around the cabin of the spaceship. The spacecraft reached an altitude of 86.1 kilometers (53.5 miles or approximately 282,000 feet).

The vehicle then glided back through the atmosphere to land on the runway of Spaceport America where it had previously taken off.

VSS Unity will be released from the carrier aircraft VMS Eve during the launch of its third space flight on May 22, 2021.

Virgo galactic

The pilots Dave Mackay and Michael Masucci flew with Unity. Sitting next to Branson in the spacecraft’s cabin are chief ronaut trainer Beth Moses, chief operations engineer Colin Bennett, and vice president for government affairs Sirisha Bandla. Both Mackay and Masucci have previously flown into space, as have Moses and pilots CJ Sturckow and Mark Stucky.

The US officially regards pilots who have flown more than 50 miles (or approximately 262,000 feet) as astronauts.

VSS Unity is designed for up to six passengers together with the two pilots. The company has approximately 600 reservations for tickets for future flights, which sell for prices between $ 200,000 and $ 250,000 each.

“We’re here to make space more accessible to everyone,” said Branson after the flight. “The mission statement that I wrote in my spacesuit was to make the dream of space travel come true for my grandchildren … and for many people living today, for everyone.”

The space goals

This was Virgin Galactic’s fourth spaceflight to date, the second this year, and the first with more than one passenger.

In addition to flying Branson, spaceflight had other goals as Virgin Galactic is still testing its spacecraft system, with the goal of entering commercial service in early 2022.

The four crew members test the spacecraft’s cabin and the training program Virgin Galactic has developed to ensure customers are properly prepared for the experience. In addition, Bandla will test running a research experiment while doing an exercise with plants in test tubes for the University of Florida.

Sunday’s space flight is one of three Virgin Galactic still needs to complete development, and two more are expected this year.

A competition for others

Shortly after the spaceflight landed, Branson announced that Virgin Galactic had partnered with sweepstakes company Omaze to offer a chance for two seats on “one of the first Virgin Galactic commercial spaceflights” early next year.

“You have a chance to go into space,” said Branson.

The competition requires a donation that goes to a nonprofit organization called Space For Humanity. The billionaire added that he will put on his “Willy Wonka hat” to give the winners a tour of Spaceport America.

“It’s a way of just trying to attract a lot of people who otherwise couldn’t afford to go into space,” said Branson.

Branson’s trip

Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson, front center, gathers with Virgin Galactic employees in front of the new SpaceShip Two VSS Unity following a new aircraft roll-out ceremony at Mojave Air and Space Port on February 19, 2016 in Mojave, California .

Ricky Carioti | The Washington Post | Getty Images

Branson has dreamed of going into space since watching the Apollo moon landing and founded Virgin Galactic in 2004 to fly private passengers into space. He started the company to buy spaceships built by aerospace designer Burt Rutans Scaled Composites.

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo system emerged from Branson’s contract with Scaled Composites. However, the spacecraft’s development had several setbacks, including a rocket engine explosion on the ground in 2007 that killed three Scaled Composite employees, and the 2014 crash of the first SpaceShipTwo, VSS Enterprise, in which the co-pilot of Virgin Galactic, Michael Alsbury, was killed and injured pilot Peter Siebold.

The company then built VSS Unity, which is equipped with additional safety measures to prevent future accidents. Virgin Galactic began testing Unity in 2016 and first reached space in December 2018. In addition, Virgin Galactic rolled the next spacecraft in its fleet earlier this year, VSS Imagine, which is the first of its next-generation SpaceShip III vehicle class.

Last month, Virgin Galactic received a license extension from the US Federal Aviation Administration that allows the company to fly passengers on future space flights. The company completed a 29-element verification and validation program for the FAA and reached the last two regulatory milestones with its most recent space test in May.

Branson wasn’t previously expected to fly on Sunday’s space flight, as Virgin Galactic leadership said the company planned to fly the founder on his penultimate test flight. But after billionaire Jeff Bezos announced that he would be flying on July 20 on his company’s Blue Origin company’s first passenger flight, Virgin Galactic changed its flight schedule – with the aim of flying Branson nine days before Bezos.

Sunday’s flight, which takes off from Bezos or Elon Musk, means Branson will be the first of the multi-billion dollar space company founders to drive his own spaceship.

Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin compete in suborbital space tourism, with both companies’ spaceships taking passengers to the edge of space for a few minutes to soar in weightlessness. An orbital flight, such as with Musks SpaceX, costs tens of millions of dollars and typically spends several days or weeks in space.

Branson’s company believes there is a market that can accommodate up to 2 million people on suborbital space flights with prices between $ 250,000 and $ 500,000, with the market expanding as costs drop.

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World News

Virgin Galactic to launch Richard Branson on July 11, aiming to beat Jeff Bezos to house

Virgin Galactic to launch Richard Branson on July 11, aiming to beat Jeff Bezos to space

The founder of Virgin, Sir Richard Branson, in Sydney, Australia.

James D. Morgan | Getty Images

Virgin Galactic announced Thursday that the space tourism company will attempt to launch its next test space flight with founder Sir Richard Branson on July 11th.

Branson wants to knock his billionaire Jeff Bezos into space, because he wants to start his own company Blue Origin on July 20th.

“After more than 16 years of research, development and testing, Virgin Galactic is at the forefront of a new commercial space industry that will open space to mankind and change the world forever,” Branson said in a statement. “I am honored to confirm the journey of our future astronauts and make sure we deliver the unique customer experience that people have come to expect from Virgin.”

This will be Virgin Galactic’s fourth test space flight to date and its first mission with a crew of four on board as the company launched its final space flight on May 22 with just two pilots.

Virgin Galactic’s shares rose 20% during after-hours trading, from $ 43.19 on Thursday’s closing.

In addition to Branson, three Virgin Galactic mission specialists will be present: Chief Astronaut Instructor Beth Moses, Senior Operations Engineer Colin Bennett, and VP of Government Affairs Sirisha Bandla. Virgin Galactic pilots Dave Mackay and Michael Masucci will fly the company’s VSS Unity spacecraft.

Virgin Galactic says it will live stream the space flight for the first time, a feed that will be available on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.

On June 25, the company announced that the Federal Aviation Administration had granted a license to fly passengers on future space flights and Virgin plans to begin flying paying passengers in early 2022.

Branson founded Virgin Galactic in 2004 to build a space tourism company. The company’s spacecraft takes off from a carrier aircraft before accelerating to more than three times the speed of sound.

The Virgin Galactic spacecraft then spends a few minutes in weightlessness over 50 miles (80 kilometers) – the limit the US officially recognizes as space – before slowly turning around and sliding back to Earth to land on a runway.

Virgin Galactic only competes with Bezos’ Blue Origin in suborbital space tourism, as Elon Musk’s SpaceX puts passengers into orbit on longer journeys, such as to the International Space Station.

In June, Bezos announced that it would be flying Blue Origin’s first passenger flight on the New Shepard rocket. Bezos is slated to hit the market on July 20 and will fly with his brother Mark, winner of a $ 28 million public auction, and legendary aerospace pioneer Wally Funk.

This is the latest news. Please check again for updates.

Categories
Health

Gene testing agency 23andMe trades increased after Branson SPAC merger

Gene testing firm 23andMe trades higher after Branson SPAC merger

Anne Wojcicki, co-founder and CEO of 23andMe (right) celebrates with 23andMe employees after remotely ringing the NASDAQ opening bell at the headquarters of DNA technology company 23andMe in Sunnyvale, California, USA on June 17, 2021.

Peter DaSilva | Reuters

The newest trade on the exchange is “ME”.

23andMe, a personalized medicine and home genetic test kit company, went public on Thursday through a merger with a Richard Branson SPAC, VG Acquisition Corp..

23andMe stock rose 21% on the Nasdaq on its first day of trading as a publicly traded company.

Founded by Anne Wojcicki – the former wife of Google founder Sergey Brin who was an early investor in the company – 23andMe was founded 15 years ago. Together with Ancestry, it helped advance the idea that genetic testing is not just a medical field, but a big consumer business. His home test kits, which enabled people to find out their genetic profiles and ancestry by sending some saliva in the mail, ushered in a new era of personalized medicine, albeit not without controversy.

23andMe, a five-time CNBC Disruptor 50 company, had no straight or sure path to success as a publicly traded company.

It was reviewed by the FDA earlier in its history; Questions about consumer privacy continue to arise as genetic information is collected from millions of people; has run into financial difficulties in recent years when the market for personalized genetic testing seemed saturated; Skepticism about the basis of their gene-based risk analysis remains controversial; and as it delves deeper into drug development, a gap in its current customer base and underlying genetic data between a mostly European genetic profile and an underrepresentation of many minorities and ethnic groups.

“It will take time … to really make sure we get all communities to participate in the research,” Wojcicki said Thursday morning in an interview with CNBC’s TechCheck. “You can’t make discoveries in a population if those people aren’t part of it. We need the right customers and we have to present the product to them in the right way.”

Wojcicki says the company has big things ahead of it for both its consumer and drug discovery and development platforms. Approximately 80% of 23andMe’s 11 million members now choose to share their genetic information (anonymized) for drug development research.

“Our genetics represent all of life on this planet and we have the opportunity to understand what it means and, in doing so, it will improve your own life, but it will also contribute to all kinds of research discoveries,” said Wojcicki.

She says the controversy over the medical usefulness of the information won’t go away once it is put into the hands of consumers, and it ranges from critical, clinical information such as mutations in the gene that causes breast cancer, BRCA, to “more controversial” genetic ones Information on variants of Alzheimer’s disease. Some people at higher risk of blood clots choose to walk around more during flights based on their 23andMe reports.

However, she added that consumers have shown that they want this information to help them make decisions.

In the case of Alzheimer’s risk, she said, “This information … really affects how they live their lives … how they retire … plan to get older.”

Her own 10-year-old son used the company’s lactose intolerance analysis to diagnose his abdominal pain, and Wojcicki herself said, although she was reluctant to talk about her personal use of the product, as the daughter of a woman who suffered from breast cancer and who a higher risk of illness, the information influences their decision to drink that “leisure glass of wine”.

“Over the past 15 years we’ve built the infrastructure so we can take off to prove to consumers that we can get the information and understand it without a healthcare professional,” she said.

In her opinion, the key to the future is that consumers want to use the information not only to change their lives, but also to contribute to drug discovery.

23andMe has 40 programs ongoing on its drug discovery platform.

“We want them to have a truly personalized health experience and … benefit the human genome when all of this aggregated data is turned into therapeutic programs,” said Wojcicki. “When I think about the future of therapeutics, the next five years are really about moving these programs forward and getting them into the clinic.”

The company also recently launched a subscription product to bring more content and services to consumers who want to take extra steps after their genetic reports.

“We reach thousands of people who call the customer care team each week and want to know how this information can be used and applied to lead healthier longer lives,” she said.

The IPO market already set an annual record for the transaction volume of $ 171 billion in 2021, and only halfway through the year. Average first day trading profits on trades this year were over 40%. Although both the traditional IPO market and SPAC yields have cooled in recent months, the Renaissance IPO ETF and CNBC SPAC Index have been negative since the start of 2021, with a continuation of last year’s big gains since the start of the year. Meanwhile, concerns about SPAC deals have increased, and some high profile SPACs like Branson’s Virgin Galactic and electric vehicle maker Lordstown Motors have shown high levels of volatility.

Nonetheless, Branson and other investors plan to bring another space company, the satellite internet service Virgin Orbit, to the public via a SPAC in the coming weeks.

This history has been updated for the company’s closing price on the first day of trading on Thursday.

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Categories
Business

Richard Branson on journey restoration, rollout efforts

Richard Branson on travel recovery, rollout efforts

Sir Richard Branson told CNBC Tuesday that he hopes that potential passengers who have been vaccinated will have what are known as Covid vaccination cards available so they may bypass other virus mitigation measures before traveling.

“Vaccination is everything. Once the vulnerable in particular are vaccinated, I think all kinds of businesses can reopen: restaurants, travel companies, cruise lines,” said Branson, co-founder of Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia.

“Hopefully there will be a vaccination certificate that will allow people to get on a plane without being tested or quarantined,” added the British businessman in an interview with Squawk on the Street. ”

Branson’s comments come a week after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that passengers would be required to prove they recently tested negative for the coronavirus before flying into the country.

And on Monday, President-elect Joe Biden spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a tweet that the new administration would maintain an entry ban for most visitors from Europe, the UK and Brazil. This announcement came shortly after President Donald Trump announced that he would lift travel restrictions.

Covid vaccination passports are a way for people to prove they have been vaccinated against the disease, and some believe they can help economic recovery from the pandemic. A group called the Vaccination Credential Initiative, supported by Microsoft and Oracle, was recently launched. The coalition is working to develop a way that people can get an encrypted digital version of vaccination logs that can then be stored in a digital wallet of their choice such as the Apple Wallet or Google Pay.

“As the world begins to recover from the pandemic, electronic access to vaccinations, tests, and other medical records will be critical to resumption of travel and more,” said Mike Sicilia, executive vice president of Oracle’s global business units , in a press release about the initiative.

Airlines and the travel industry have been hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic. Industry executives have pointed out time and again that widespread Covid vaccinations are key to robust recovery.

While air travel isn’t at the bottom of the pandemic, Branson expects it will spike in the coming months as vaccinations continue to roll out. He praised efforts across the UK to get vaccinations, as well as Biden’s promise to vaccinate 100 million Americans in 100 days.

“I would hope that in three or four months, once most of the vulnerable are vaccinated, we can look forward to late spring or summer to get back to normal,” said Branson.