Today thousands are celebrating as the first commercial space flight took off and landed again safely on Friday. Virgin Galactic, a company under Richard Branson's Virgin umbrella, made history as the first passenger service commercial flight for space travel to take off and make it to outer space.

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The SpaceShipTwo, VSS Unity, took off in Mojave, California. Hundreds of people watched in person, and thousands more watched online as the VSS Unity safely took off, reached space, and landed back on earth. Richard Branson, owner of the company, says this was huge step forward in making his personal dreams a reality.

“Many of you will know how important the dream of space travel is to me personally. Ever since I watched the moon landings as a child I have looked up to the skies with wonder. We started Virgin nearly 50 years ago dreaming big and loving a challenge,” Branson Said. “Today, as I stood among a truly remarkable group of people with our eyes on the stars, we saw our biggest dream and our toughest challenge to date fulfilled. It was an indescribable feeling: joy, relief, exhilaration and anticipation for what is yet to come.”

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Branson went on to say that the world will not be the same now that commercial space travel is happening, “Today, for the first time in history, a crewed spaceship, built to carry private passengers, reached space. Today we completed our first revenue generating flight and our pilots earned their Commercial Astronaut Wings. Today, we have shown that Virgin Galactic really can open space to change the world for good.”

Virgin Galactic has much more in store for space travel. Branson says there are even more goals they want to hit, like going faster and further.

“We will now push on with the remaining portion of our flight test program, which will see the rocket motor burn for longer and VSS Unity fly still faster and higher towards giving thousands of private astronauts an experience which provides a new, planetary perspective to our relationship with the Earth and the cosmos. This is a momentous day and I could not be more proud of our teams who together have opened a new chapter of space exploration.”

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