Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos
How serious could the suborbital space race between Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos get? (GeekWire Photos)

Would Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson try to steal a march on Blue Origin (and Amazon) founder Jeff Bezos when it comes down to which billionaire flies first on their own suborbital spaceship?

There’s been some buzz about that question in the wake of this week’s announcement that Bezos will be among the first people to travel to the edge of space in Blue Origin’s New Shepard capsule on July 20, the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Branson was quick to tweet his congratulations when Bezos’ plans came to light, but also told followers to “watch this space.”

And today, Parabolic Arc’s Doug Messier — who’s long reported on Virgin Galactic’s ups and downs from its home base in Mojave, Calif. — quoted an unnamed source as saying that the company was working on a plan to put Branson aboard its VSS Unity SpaceShipTwo rocket plane for a trip beyond 50 miles in altitude over the Fourth of July holiday weekend.

Messier quoted his source as saying the July 4 plan was contingent upon receiving licensing approval from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier has said Branson would be on one of the upcoming SpaceShipTwo flights, taking place as early as this summer. But the expected plan is for VSS Unity to do a test flight with a lower-ranking crew of “mission specialists” first, and fly the boss on the trip after that.

Virgin Galactic’s test pilots flew VSS Unity above the 50-mile mark most recently on May 22. The company considers 50 miles to be the boundary of space, in accordance with the FAA’s definition for awarding commercial astronaut wings. In contrast, Blue Origin focuses on the 100-kilometer-high (62-mile-high) mark, the internationally accepted space boundary that’s known as the Karman Line.

In an emailed statement, Virgin Galactic said it was still “in the process of analyzing the data from our successful May 22nd flight.”

“As previously announced, we expect to complete the final test flights this summer through to early fall,” the company said. “At this time, we have not determined the date of our next flight.”

The statement didn’t explicitly reject the idea that mission planners might be looking into the options for giving Branson an early space ride.

However, a source who’s familiar with the situation surrounding the flight test schedule said claims about sending Branson into space during the July 4 weekend would be false information, based on the existing policies for analyzing test data and assessing flight safety. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the situation publicly.

Meanwhile, the online auction for an open seat on the first New Shepard flight to carry people is continuing, with the high bid reaching $3.8 million today. The auction will reach its climax on Saturday with a live bidding session that will be streamed via Blue Origin’s website starting at 9:45 a.m. PT. Bids will registered confidentially, and Blue Origin says the identity of the winner will be revealed “in the weeks following the auction’s conclusion.”

Proceeds from the auction will be donated to the Club for the Future, Blue Origin’s nonprofit educational foundation. The winner would fill a seat alongside Jeff Bezos and his brother, Mark Bezos, plus up to three other spacefliers who would presumably be Blue Origin employees or VIPs.

It’d be quite something if Branson — or, for that matter, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk — ended up with the high bid. Would it be too much to imagine the billionaire space rivals riding together like the stars of a sci-fi buddy movie?

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