Richard Branson is going to space. Which doesn’t particularly interest me. But what I find interesting is how his spaceship works. First, it is strapped to the bottom of a normal (but big) plane which takes off from a normal runway.

Once Unity reaches an altitude approaching 50,000 feet (15,200 meters), it will detach from Eve and ignite its single rocket motor. It will go supersonic within eight seconds and power up to 2,600 miles per hour (4,200 kilometers per hour), or beyond Mach 3.

After 70 seconds the engine will cut out, with the spacecraft coasting to its peak altitude, which for Sunday’s mission will be a height of 55 miles or almost 300,000 feet, according to Virgin Galactic.

MSN

When it is ready to come down, it spreads its wings into a sort of “feather” which sounds like a parachute, drifts back into the atmosphere (which starts at 50 miles according to NASA, but closer to 60 miles according to some international standards), then folds its wings back into airplane mode and returns to the runway as an unpowered glider.

Jeff Bezos’s version takes off as a rocket, apparently. Like I said, I don’t particularly care about the egos of these men, but it does appear that the era of private space flight is upon us.