‘Wings like cracked eggshells’: Richard Branson faces turbulence over safety of space flights

Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity, which is designed to be launched from its mothership VMS Eve. Photograph: Virgin Galactic/AP

In a desert basin in New Mexico, Richard Branson hopes history will be made later this year with the launch of Virgin Galactic’s first commercial flights to the edge of space, with tickets costing about $450,000 (£370,000) each.

It is an ambitious schedule to launch the “world’s first commercial spaceliner” at Spaceport America, even though it is already more than a decade late.