Billionaire Branson’s Blastoff Beats Bezos.

There are worse things for billionaires to compete over.

Richard Branson reached space on a test flight for Virgin Galactic before gliding back to earth and touching down safely Sunday, the latest salvo in the burgeoning space tourism business led by high-profile billionaires.

The Virgin Group founder launched Sunday with three company employees, flying 53 miles above the earth in a final test mission before kicking off commercial space flights next year. Branson – who earned his pilot’s license – tested the astronaut cabin experience.

Jeff Bezos gets to go up in nine days. Between you, me, and the lamppost: he’s not real thrilled about that, either. In contrast to Elon Musk – but then, Musk’s already racked up some firsts of his own. Why not be gracious?

Moe Lane

PS: I would recommend Michael Flynn’s Firestar series, but only the last one is available on Kindle. Weird.