Sir Richard Branson and his team of astronauts at Virgin Galactic successfully traveled into space Sunday before returning to Earth. The crew landed safely in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, home of Branson’s Spaceport America, in their Unity 22 space plane. The flight marked Branson as the “winner” of the billionaire space race and marked the first commercial spaceflight in human history.
“We’re here to make space more accessible to all. We want to turn the next generation of dreamers into the astronauts of today and tomorrow. We’ve all of us on this stage have had the most extraordinary experience, and we’d love it if a number of you can have it, too. If you ever had a dream, now it the time to make it come true. I’d like to end by saying welcome to the dawn of a new space age,” Branson said following the flight.
The Virgin Galactic flight was documented via livestream on Sunday.
Stephen Colbert served as host of the livestream as the Unity 22 introduced the world to commercial space travel, beating out Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the billionaire space race, Musk was present in New Mexico to watch Branson take flight.
In celebration of the historic flight, Khalid debuted his new song “New Normal” on stage following the successful landing of the Unity 22 crew.
Khalid described his new track to Rolling Stone: “Around this time last year, I was super fascinated and gravitated toward space. I was watching this comet by the name of Neowise last year, and space travel is something that I’ve always been interested in as well. And I’ve been going through the motions of understanding this new, postmodern future that’s coming together, especially when it comes down to technology — it’s something that really excites me.”
