More than 60 years after longtime flight instructor and aspiring astronaut Wally Funk joined a group of women who submitted to a battery of medical tests designed to assess their fitness for space, the 82-year-old realized a lifelong mission when she joined Jeff Bezos and two others aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard July 20. Richard Branson reached the edge of space and safely returned to Earth on July 11, a trip that marks a turning point in the billionaire entrepreneur's multidecade effort to help create a space-tourism industry. Virgin Galactic plans to initiate commercial service next year, charging passengers hundreds of thousands of dollars each for such flights. The test flight was aimed at evaluating systems and the passenger experience, as well as providing additional validation of its safety.
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