Well he finally did it. 17 years after Richard Branson first launched Virgin Galactic, the thrill-seeking billionaire has taken to the skies and reached space

In his boldest adventure yet, the 70 year old Richard Branson took off for the first stage of the flight.

On the ground, about 500 people watched on, including Richard Branson’s wife, children and grandchildren.

On board were his five crewmates from his Virgin Galactic space tourism company.

The space plane detached from the mother ship at an altitude of about 13km and fired its engine, reaching the edge of space about 88km up.

After a few minutes of weightlessness for the crew, the space plane is began its decent, set to end with a glide to a runway landing.

Richard Branson couldn’t contain his excitement, as he spoke on the journey back to earth.

He thanked his crew and remembered all those who had worked on the mammoth project.

After a decade of promises, the moment finally came for Richard Branson to unveil his spaceship for the people.

He said on board:: “To all you kids down there, I was once a kid with a dream. Now I’m up here, in a space ship!”

Customer spaceflight experience

As Branson took to space onboard Virgin Galactic, his official role for the journey will be “evaluating customer spaceflight experience”.

And that’s an important role – after all anyone who wants to rise Virgin Galactic will need to part with a quarter of a million dollars first, and that price is expected to rise.

Along with the two pilots, there is room for six passengers with a flight time of about an hour and a half.

The spaceship will just go over the 82 kilometres, which is where the US recognises someone as having been into space.

Then, passengers will get to experience about six minutes of weightlessness and seeing the curvature of the Earth and the darkness of space.

They will then descend, landing on a runway much like the old space shuttle or a normal passenger plane.

The new space race

Richard Branson’s adventure will pre-empt next week’s first flight for Blue Origin, as Jeff Bezos launches his space dreams.

Jeff and Blue Origin are promising a completely different experience for their customers.

Blue Origin’s New Shepard, which has no pilots and room for six passengers, reaches more than 100 kilometres high, which is the internationally recognised boundary of space.

Passengers on Blue Origin will get about three minutes to float around and feel like they are in space.

Might be half the time, but the price is 50,000 dollars cheaper than flying on Virgin Galactic.

But either way, the expensive thrill ride marks the beginning of earth’s commercial passenger trips into space.

Virgin Galactic doesn’t expect to start flying customers before next year.