The Joyride Era of Space Travel Is Here

Richard Branson was hungover on the day the Apollo 11 astronauts landed on the moon in 1969. He had turned 19 two days earlier and had celebrated accordingly. But he was “gripped” as he watched Neil Armstrong on his family’s little black-and-white television, he later wrote in a memoir. He knew then—he was “instantly convinced”—that someday he would go to space himself.

The adventurous British billionaire did it today, at the age of 70, with his own space company, Virgin Galactic, from his own spaceport in New Mexico. He didn’t go as far as the moon, nor did he orbit