Billionaire Richard Branson rockets to the edge of space
The UK entrepreneur flew high above New Mexico in the US in the vehicle that his company has been developing for 17 years. He returned safely to Earth just over an hour after leaving the ground. The trip also makes him the first of the new space tourism pioneers to try out their own vehicles, beating Amazon's Jeff Bezos and SpaceX's Elon Musk. The height reached by Sir Richard in the rocket plane, known as Unity, was 85km. Sir Richard billed the flight as a test of the space tourism experience he expects to begin selling to customers from next year.
Source: bbc.com