Is Virgin Galactic the Ultimate Thrill Ride?
July 11, 2021, 7:30 PM ·
British billionaire Sir Richard Branson blasted into space this morning in his Virgin Galactic Unity spaceplane. Virgin Galactic is run by former Disneyland President Michael Colglazier and recently hired former Imagineer Joe Rohde as its "Experience Architect," so the the company has strong connections to the theme park industry. And that makes sense. Because what Branson is trying to do with Virgin Galactic is as much Disney as it is NASA.
Virgin Galactic will be taking customers in a rocket-propelled spaceplane to an altitude over 50 miles, which NASA and the US military consider the boundary of space. That's still short of the 62-mile Karman line that other international authorities consider the border, but it's high enough to see the sky turn black, the Earth's horizon curve below you and for passengers to experience a few minutes of weightlessness at the peak of their suborbital, parabolic flight.