LAS CRUCES (SPACEPORT AMERICA, New Mexico), July 12: Making private space travel
a reality, British Virgin Atlantic's Richard Branson, 71, on Sunday blasted
off to sub-orbit in his Virgin Galactic space tourism company's space plane,
VSS Unity, and glided down smoothly on to the same runway in New Mexico, realising
his childhood dream, as he claimed.
When his space plane, which was propelled by rocket Eve (named after his mother),
carrying him and five others returned from the edge of space at the outer boundary
of Earth's atmosphere, at an altitude of 88 km, after 90 minutes of blast-off,
a tumultuous welcome by his jubilant grandchildren awaited him on the ground.
According to an excited Branson, his major achievements were two: 1) Experiencing
a few minutes of weightlessness at the outer boundary of Earth's surface; and,
2) having a bird's-eye view of the curvature of Earth. There are 17 windows
in the spaceship, one each for every seat.
In his own words, the trip was "an experience of a lifetime." Branson's Virgin
Galactic, founded in 2004, will begin commercial operations by launching
customers into space next year.
Coming next, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, however, will cross over the Karman line
that marks the frontier of space in his Blue Origin's spacecraft, New Shepard,
from West Texas on July 20.
Intensifying the competition in space tourism, the third to follow is yet another
billionaire and founder of electric carmaker Tesla Inc., Elon Musk of SpaceX,
which had collaboration with NASA in sending cargo and astronauts to the space
station earlier. In coming September he will send civilians to space in his
SpaceX.
There are over 600 bookings with these "travel agents" as of now from the public
for space travel, a ticket costing $ 250,000.
Those who accompanied Branson in the flight were three mission specialists
- Sirisha Bandla (of Indian origin: born in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, and brought
up in Houston, Texas), Beth Moses and Colin Bennett, and two pilots Dave Mackay
and Michael Masucci.
Aside, how did he feel those tense moments before shooting into space: "Every bit about it is a pinch-me moment," he said in an interview.
Virgin Galactic's Richard Branson, who opened a new chapter in
space age last month by launching the first manned private flight
to the edge of space, flying in his own spaceplane, has
invited everyone to join his expedition of space travel and
experience the thrill of totally losing your weight (BMI = 0) and enjoy
the mind-blowing sight of the earth's curvatures from the orbit far above: 
Can we ask the vaccinator, "Do you pull back the plunger and
then push the vaccine? Do you Aspirate?" When the vaccination
for covid started there were reports of worrisome incidents of
adverse events post immunisation, the serious complaints being
non-specific blood clots. These related to viral vector vaccines of
human and non-human source: AstraZeneca and Janssen. How
did it happen. There are various views. But here is a suggestion
how simply it can be prevented. 
While the rationalists debunk the episode as a ploy to make up for
the losses in offerings during the corona lockdown, the believers
stick to their claim, they have seen it after all! The claim of
Shankaralinga temple resembles the miracle of Ganesha drinking
milk in Delhi way back in 1995. Although they belong to two
different branches of science. 
A pair of socks gifted to her by her niece displayed on her legs has done
the job for Gumball Poodle. The demand for 'Future is Female' is
skyrocketing indeed. What more could one ask for?
