Virgin Galactic says it sends astronauts into space before Christmas

Virgin Galactic, an airline that seeks to explore space tourism, says it is doing the advanced work and CEO Richard Branson says it is "reasonably" confident that it will send its first astronauts into space even before Christmas.

The company has plans to send tourists into orbit very soon, but rather will test how their travels with professionals will be before placing paying travelers on their spacecraft. After these early sessions, which Branson admits to being the most dangerous, he himself says he must be on the inaugural flights.

The executive has been promising releases since 2007 and it seems that now they should finally happen. In July, he made an optimistic projection about going into space before 2018 ended, and in October that projection fell to weeks rather than months.

Pilots will reach 2, 300 miles per hour (3, 700 kilometers per hour), accelerating top speed by about eight seconds, Branson said in an interview with CNN. Earlier this year, the company resumed power testing of the rebuilt SpaceShipTwo, called VSS Unity. The latest assessment, in July, sent the vessel at an altitude of 32.3 miles (51.9 kilometers) and the goal is to reach 50 miles (80.4 kilometers) above Earth.

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