Shadows stretch over Richard Branson’s journey into space aboard Virgin Galactic on Sunday 11 July 2021. Hailed by the 71-year-old billionaire founder of Virgin Group as “the dawn of a new space age”, since in fact it was of the first “tourist” flight of this type, followed a few days later by that of Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin, from America it is assumed that in reality things did not go as well as they wanted to believe.
In particular, according to an investigation by the New Yorker, a serious accident occurred during the flight, which lasted almost 90 minutes, of the Virgin Galactic private spacecraft: a red light would have come on in the cockpit, signaling a problem that could have lead to a fatal outcome. The US Aviation Agency (FAA) has announced that it is investigating a deviation from the flight path, which allowed billionaire Branson to beat the other billionaire and founder of Amazon, Bezos, on a tightrope. private to space. In short, while Virgin Galactic in July had assured that everything had gone according to plan, it seems that the spacecraft flew briefly out of the airspace dedicated to the mission.
“Virgin Galactic will not be able to fly its SpaceShipTwo until the FAA has approved the final report of the investigation or determined that the problems related to the accident do not affect public safety,” the US agency said in a statement. statement sent to AFP. The private billionaires’ race to space has begun, but it doesn’t seem as free of pitfalls and dangers as some would have you believe.
Space
With Jeff Bezos begins the era of space tourism: the next Blue Origin flights already in autumn
by Bruno Ruffilli
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