Astro Venture 539 63112 EA Space Shuttle, red

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As for Sunday's flight, Branson said this week that he is excited, "and I really don't think there’s anything there to be scared about." Astra laid out an aggressive timeline for scaling production and generating revenue, starting with its first commercial launch this summer. The three other mission specialists are Beth Moses, the company's chief astronaut instructor; Virgin Galactic's lead operations engineer Colin Bennett; and Sirisha Bandla, a research operations and government affairs vice president. Branson, 70, insists there is plenty of demand from wealthy would-be citizen astronauts to go around, and that he had no intention of trying to upstage Bezos.

In 1987 he made a record-breaking Atlantic crossing by hot-air balloon, though again he had to be rescued from the sea. He went on to break at least two other air-balloon speed records but failed to complete any of three bids to circumnavigate the globe by balloon. Astra's board of directors includes Kemp, co-founder and chief technology officer Dr. Adam London, Advance executive Nomi Bergman and ACME venture capital partner Scott Stanford.Is it possible theoretically? Yes. But, in basically four years, is one company going to be able to support that kind of schedule? It's ambitious – nobody's ever done it."

The company's risk factors, listed in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, also give investors a sense of what challenges Astra may see as it works toward its goals. If they succeed, their ventures will be taken more seriously," Caceres said. "There's plenty of multimillionaires in the world that would like to go up on an adventure, so long as they see it as relatively safe." Lastly, regulatory delays outside of Astra's concern are another risk, as the company requires licenses from U.S. regulators like the Federal Aviation Administration for launches. The Virgin brand, including Branson's airline and former record label, has long been associated with exploits of derring-do by its flamboyant founder. Branson set a new record for the fastest boat crossing of the Atlantic in 1986, a year after his initial attempt ended with a Royal Air Force helicopter rescue when his vessel capsized. We found that most of the Astro Venture products are manufactured by Play Mind, PlayMind, and Playmind. The manufacturers provide Astro Venture with a steady supply of products, and they have a good cooperative relationship with each other.It's honestly not a race," Branson told Reuters in an interview earlier this week. "If it's a race, it's a race to produce wonderful spaceships that can make many more people be able to access space. And I think that's both of our aims." PLAY AND EXPLORE: With 2 astronauts and a space vehicle, your budding space explorers will be able to let their imagination run wild while discovering all the strange things about the planets they land on. All I need is a license from the FAA, we put a fence around a gravel pad, and we launch from there in five days with five people," Kemp said. Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, along with fellow billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's SpaceX, are competing head-to-head in the emerging business of space tourism, though Musk has a big head start. SpaceX, which plans to send its first all-civilian crew (without Musk) into orbit in September, has already launched numerous cargo payloads and astronauts to the International Space Station.