a businessman is closer to his out of this world dream of taking torres center orbits. richard branson in 5 members are due to leave a very soon for from new mexico, southern desert on a flight that will take around 90 minutes. virgin glass takes 1st full commercial flight isn't until next year though, but it will cost you a quarter of a $1000000.00 for a seat, $600.00 tickets, already reserved, and ingest a few days blew origins. new shepherd rocket will head to space with its owner and amazon boss jeff bezos is rather an 82 year old female pilot mary wallace was trained as an astronaut, but denied a chance in the 60s to go to space because of agenda shall soon get her chance on a flight that will last 10 minutes. and while ill on mosque space facts has already taken a cool to the international space station. i know civilian, cool, we'll go into orbit later this year. the tesla found, assess charges for his private fights will go toward moon and long missions. inspiration for will take 4 days to return back to live,

to rob reynolds in new mexico forest, where the big launch is happening very shortly at 1430, which is now what's going to happen, rob? well, this is the culmination of 20 years of richard branson's. the dream of starting a space company developing all of the technology to accomplish visits, to at least near space or near near space. and it hasn't been a completely easy road. it costs a lot of money. there have been some setbacks, including a fatal mishap when the space plane disintegrated in mid air in 2014. that was on a test flight and that was attributed to pilot error. but the all system seem to be go today. branson ever the showman tweeted out

a slickly produced video of himself, riding bike up to the spaceport area around here and then reading his fellow passengers. 3 mission specialist employees, the virgin galactic. they've now got their space suits. they're getting gathering near the plane that will take the spacecraft called unity high enough for unity to break free of the plane and then begin firing. it's rocket engine to take it up about 80 kilometers above the earth . do we know rod the plane will experience microgravity right? you're minutes wrong. know where we are in the process right now because it's supposed to be launching. now, it hasn't happened yet. is there a delay? we haven't gotten any information about that. it did appear that there were some

groups of people near the, on the tarmac, seeing off branson and his colleagues that may have take it some time to get them back to a safe distance. but we're not certain at this point whether there is any functional delay in the mission. ok, so as of yet no launch as we want. she is live pictures with you from new mexico, an exciting day in space, right. launch with this launch by richard branson was about to realize his lifetime . ambition is wrong, said there by flying to the edge of space, he will be riding his virgin galactic locket playing on sunday for its funny crew. first. really crude space flight and on board will be branson, 2 pilots and 3 specialists to take off window is now that hasn't happened yet. can we speak to leo and write about this?

so this based on list will be joining us very shortly from mar, say, in the south of france leo, if you can hear me. so we're waiting for the launch to happen. it seems to be a slight delay. talk as to what happens in the process was going to be happening exactly today. you. i think a delay is to be expected. the 90 minute delay they were to begin the process 90 minutes ago. the 90 minute delay was caused by weather last night, which delayed taking out the space plane this morning. so they had a delay caused by weather there, then appeared to be some delay. i suspect it may have been just meeting and greeting. so i reckoned that was a delay about 20 minutes for them getting into the land rover's grove, them out to their a space plane. so it wouldn't be surprising for there to be still yet another short delay. i noticed that their live stream hasn't started yet. they advertised that it

would have started about 4 minutes ago. so none of this particularly surprising, but there is an interesting sidelight to this and not to probably allies this by any means, but half the crew are british, right? so this is quite a british enterprise, and the whole purpose of this flight is to publicize the opportunity to buy tickets on these flights. now, if brown, some flight is delayed, much longer into the c name. it's going to clash in terms of media attention with england and cult. so from takeoff to landing leo, the whole trip is what roughly an hour. yeah, it will take 50 minutes for the point once it takes all this is this big mother craft with to few it was refusal latches which with the space plane

attached between these 2 aircraft, it will take all and it will take about 50 minutes for it to get to the 15 kilobyte meter height from which they will release the smaller space rocket plane, it will drop for a few seconds and then will ignite its booster engine for about 60 seconds. this is going to be a very fast and noisy ride, as they are last straight up towards the edge of space. fear was about 5 minutes. i'll come back. we see we see it's moving. now there's some movement, very new mexico. we can see the plane a spacecraft attack seeing there that's carrying the rocket. so presumably, richard branson and cool are in it. now. let's see what happens next, but talk us through, you know,

when most people think about space flight. they think about, of course, the astronaut circling the earth floating in space and, and for at least a few days. that's not what which bronson is going to be doing. right, no, absolutely not. this is essentially a joy ride. they will go up. they will float for about 5 minutes. they will have a wonderful opportunity to see the earth in all its magnificence and through the windows of this spacecraft. they will then strap themselves back into their seats. the pilots there are 2 pilots on board. their most important job will be to change the shape of the vehicle. it's almost like an hour. a gammy japanese are a gammy paper model. they will change the shape of the spaceship so that when it hits the atmosphere, it slows down and gently re enters back into the arts atmosphere. at that point

they will change the shape of the spacecraft again to turn it in to a regular planes. and at that stage the craft will drift down. it's a glider, it has no power and they have one chance to land back on the wrong way where they're taking all from now. leo, of course it's been a long road for richard branson to get to this point as rob was pointing out earlier, he 1st amounted intention to to make a space plane in 2004. and he expected, of course, that he would have a commercial service available by 2007. that didn't happen because there were technical difficulties including a fatal crash which you talked about. what are the risks involved in today's launch? there are certainly considerable risks, but there's no point to minimizing them. once you get into a rocker, whether it's a rocket plane or a regular rockers, you're sitting on a bomb. and what,

what is involved in launching somebody even to the edge of space is a controlled explosion. and the product of that explosion comes out the back out of the rocket nozzle and propels you to the edge of space. none of this is normal. it is not a trivial event, and we are rob, talk at some length about how richard branson has a reputation already worldwide as an adventure. this is certainly way up there with the adventures that he's had before. yeah, virgin galactic. a said it's bill safety back stops. into a space plane and completed more than 20 testifies 3 of which have been successful in reaching the edge of space. and they received the go ahead from an internal safety review board and a green light from federal regulators to host passengers. so they seem to be pretty sure about, you know, the, the safety and security of all this. but once again,

yes, go on a regular environment of this is very interesting. one version of god is, is a clearance to launch based on the understanding that the passengers do understand the risks that they're taking. and they're also being allowed to launch from a desert location because the federal government would not give them permission to launch a rockers from an area that where the rocket might fall on other people. so the printer, you read the regulators at the moment, all they're interested in is making sure the people on the grounders. all right, so there is definitely a movement now. and the plane carrying the spacecraft speed being up the runway. there it will be taking off very shortly. i important an exciting moment in history space fight with richard bronson and several others on board launching today. this is really

a lifetime ambition for richard black branson flying to the edge of space. let's look at these live pictures now. as the pain carrying the spacecraft takes off ah, and we hear a process, an excitement in new mexico in the background, they're quite exciting. leo, as we were saying is gone off. first phase are gone off. it looks like they will rise up now to 15 kilometers. that's going to take a bit of time and they do what they call a race track. and they, they do a pop around the wrong way that they just took off from fact, but at high altitude. and in the time while their own that race try, but they call it, they will be cru both on the space plane itself, beef, unity, space plane, and the mother graphed eve as it's called. and those 2 crews will be checking

absolutely everything. so there is no question of them allowing this to go any further. if they run into any troubles, either on the way all are during that race track period. there is plenty of time yet for them to go through safety checks and to call a halt if they're not entirely comfortable. so the safety checks are there, but the risks are real. if you're just joining us on al jazeera life pictures from sierra county in new mexico, richard branson has blasted off into space on a mission to cakes, thought space stories in ra rentals is therefore, is wrong. what are you seeing from your vantage point? i'm seeing that big white birds just drifting off into the, into the bright blue sky and the bright sunlight here in,

in new mexico. and it's just sort of almost gone out of sight now it's, it's some cloud, but it's still visible. when it took off, there was a big jeer here from some of the people who pulled up by the side of the road to watch it on their own, as well as the guests and some of the tents and, and big buildings here at the space board. we've lost our connection there with the rob lee. are you still with us? i believe. yes indeed. okay, so now it's taken off. now unity understand will detached from the plane and then begin. it's fast. 62nd fried to the sub orbit in how long it will only take about a minute for them to speed up. they experience about pre and what they call pre and have geez. that is, they feel like they're weighing about 3 and a half times what they weigh normally on earth because of the speed of acceleration,

rather like a roller coaster. but as soon as that rocket engine cuts off, they will start to float. it will be instantaneous, and very, very dramatic. they will be pushed back in their seat, and then 60 seconds later, they will suddenly find themselves loose in their safety harnesses. at that point, once the captain is he's a scott fishman. once he's satisfied that everything is safe, he will tell them to buckle themselves from their seats, and they will float out of their seats towards. but windows of this extraordinary space place. how, how exciting and significant is what we're seeing today. leo, in the wider history of space exploration. there was a lot of hype, of course, in the lead up to, to this event into this launch. do you think it's justified?

yeah, i mean, i do think that this is another step. i've said many times that of course this is a little bit of a side road because going into the near space and into to the edge of space and coming straight back down is nothing compared to going into orbit . there's simply no comparison. the amount of energy that is required to put a spaceship circling the art so that you can stay there for weeks, months and even years comparing that to what branson is doing. this is, i mean, comparing, going into this orbit as being going out on the high seas. this is rather like getting into a dinky and going into a harbor down the road from me. right? i like the comparison. richard branson has blasted off into space ra rentals with us from new mexico. once again, there was excitement we heard some cheering there in the background when,

when the pain was taking off. tell us about who's there and you know, what's expected, what's going to be happening? well, after the plane, they see the unity spacecraft land. again, back on that same very we're runway that the eve took off from then there will be a press conference in the lactic virgin galactic headquarters here at the state board richard branson. it promised a major surprise during that press conference, so we'll have to wait and see what the showman space now has to say to us. so that will be one feature after after this, but i. 6 just volley, i just have to, you know, sort of almost think of this in personal terms. when i was a kid growing up in the $900.00 sixty's in the space races on the apollo missions

were going on and people were thinking, hey, in a few years, all of us will be able to go to space will have colonies on the will be going to mars with, with human missions you know, jupiter skies the limit literally. course, you know, other things just took precedence like consumer electronics, i guess. but nevertheless, this is something that a lot of people really dreamed about. the idea of ordinary people, not highly trained. pilots going or after odds are not going into space and it really is just amazing to think branson going to be $71.00 in a few days. wally funk, who the woman who is going to go aboard the blue origin. with jeff phase those on the 20th the joy, 82 years old, she was a qualified is one of the 1st astronauts. but because as

a sexual discrimination at that time in the 960, she never got a chance to go up in iraq. and she's going to be able to do that now. so these are, these are again, you know, people who are, would a normal circumstances, never be able to why, but now they're being able to play. right? but it will be a opening up democratization of space. who knows. yeah, but, but the idea of ordinary people, ordinary in quotation marks because this is going to cost a lot of money to go to go. busy up there isn't it? mm. well yeah. ordinary people who got quarter of a 1000000 bucks to spare. yeah. and you know, as you talk to your guest, god forbid if, if anything goes wrong. you know, this is going to be like the hindenburg. you don't see too many people on the zeppelin these days after that disaster. so you know, fingers crossed that everything goes well and maybe the price goes down over time as maybe more people start doing this sort of thing. maybe it's not just witchard

branson and jeff bass, others and other companies that will begin doing this sort of space tourism leo. let me bring you on on, on this, you know, this space story strand. do you see picking up after this? because again, as we said, it's going to be very expensive to get up there. yes indeed. i mean richard branson is in this to make money as well as everything else. this has been extraordinarily successful forum. he hasn't launched a single passenger, but his company is worth billions and he's been able to trade all the strength of virgin galactic and the, the bows around it to protect his other company such as virgin atlantic. during this and demick. it's been really quite an extraordinary story of how a dream of that of going into space has been turned into really an extraordinary successful business enterprise before he even launches

a single customer. right. rob, of course, talked about the space race in the 1900 fifties and sixties between the russians and americans. now you have the race, you know, between branson and basis was different. you think about today's launch versus what we're going to be seeing on july 20th with base or says launch? well, they will be very different experience as both for the viewer looking at home and for the people aboard the spacecraft. because these us is using a more traditional rockers, he's got a got a capsule on top, a really extraordinary cap. still nothing ever like it before. flown into space. he has flown successfully without people on board. he's flown this 15 times. 14 times at the capsule landed safely, the 15th time was actually a test of the board system. so they actually deliberately caused it to have an

accident to see how it coat in those circumstances. so the blue origin, new shepherd vehicle that piece oss has built is a very, very different dynamo will go straight up from the ground to the near space. and whereas branson is relying on this mother craft the eve and named after his mother. he's relying on that, which is at the moment finding to altitude, to release the space plane that continues all the way to the edge of space. let me ask you one last question. do you think the future of scientific exploration in space is in jeopardy, or is it enhanced by the private and public sectors working together? i do think that there has been an extraordinary advance in recent years in the number of private companies. and also interestingly, companies that are being assisted by states entities. this is particularly true in

china, but it's true throughout the world where the sovereign states are teaming all with private companies to increase their capacity. i mean, nobody would have imagined 15 years ago that new zealand would have a space program. i mean, that is just astonishing. they are launching rockets out of new zealand on a monthly basis. now, the company itself is an american based company, but they've been launching out of new zealand now for several years with robotic missions. so this has really opened up the opportunity for scientists and commercial companies to exploit space. leo, thank you so much. very good to talk to you about this in here, all your inside a rio and write a space on this. joining us there from our se will be speaking to you later. of course, it is just joining us on ologist. there are big breaking news story at this hour richard branson and his crew blasting off into space just about 20 minutes to go

on board the space flight unity, the plane carrying the phase back took off 20 minutes ago. and then unity will detach from the plane and begin it's fast. 62nd flight to the sub orbit at $1520.00 g m t in about an hour or so. so a very exciting moment here. as the space race he stepped between richard branson and his arrival. of course we will be keeping an eye on this story throughout the day here on i'll just close. thank you for being with us. we will now move on to other news and nearly a century after it was 1st erected in charlottesville, virginia. the statue of robert e. lee has been removed. this comes 4 years after its sponsored deadly weekend of violence. onlookers, including black lives matter, support us, cheered as the figure of the confederate general was pulled down from its pedestal and began to get has our report. the campaign is in charlottesville,

4 years to remove the statue of confederate, general and slave. oh no, robert e. lee, on saturday morning, the long battle came to fruition its peaceful crowd walked a controversial figure of this nation's troubled racial. past remove the statue, and another of general thomas stonewall. jackson will be kept in a secure location, both se activists symbols of a shameful past were finally ready to be a community that doesn't telegraph to our public arts that we are pretty fine with white from 4 years ago, plans to remove lease, to became a flashpoint white nationalist descended on charlottesville in scenes that shocked the world. august 2017. 32 year old has a he was killed with a neo nazi rammed his car into a crowd of anti racism. protestors who kill it was late

a sentence to life in prison, where the people are one step closer to the tranquillity promised by the writers of the constitution to form a more perfect union. we are so far from the perfect union, yet one step closer today. as these 2 statues come down in the years that followed memorials to the pro slavery confederacy were taken down across the us even more following the death of george floyd at the hands of a white police officer for the young people out there. i hope that this empower you to speak up on the issues that matter is we take charge in your own cities and communities, no platform for white supremacy, no platform rates for racism, and no platform for critics or the start use a part of the heritage of the u. s. it's southern states, others,

reminders of racial discrimination and oppression that's never gone away. according to the southern poverty law center, hundreds of symbols of the confederacy remain in place across the us. even as the fight continues to remove them. states like alabama, mississippi and tennessee or inactive policies to protect them. the gala corral to 0. washington fighting between venezuela, security forces and gangs in the capital crackers. her scale at least $26.00 people, including 4 police officers, almost a 1000 armed officers, entered for poor neighbourhood on friday, several by thunders, i believe to be among the dead. the government blames the violence on an alleged plant by the opposition to the civilized president. nicholas madura enough if somebody had put about on this morning, we were woken up by the sound of grenades. it's terrible to be living with such things that he had lost. the moon shots fell one after another. the day before, last one fell on the roof of my house. we couldn't find the bullet anywhere,

but there's a whole throws right wing presidential candidate cake off. would you? maury is demanding the a non meant of 200000 votes from last month's election. for jim murray has made repeated claims that 4 days of her arrival. pedro castillo stole boats in rural areas. castillo has a lead of some 44000 votes. though the final result has yet to be officially confirmed, bulgarian voting in their 2nd parliamentary election in just 3 months. the early pole was called after april election resulted in a hung parliament that failed to form coalition government before the following month. former prime minister boys from stepped down and handed over power to a caretaker government. since then, they've been several accusations of corruption linked to the governing party. but frances had appeared in public for the 1st time since undergoing colon surgery. a week ago, he led sunday prayers from the balcony of his hospital in rome, doctor se the 84 year old point it is recovering well as it for

this news are on, i'll just say with us kim vanelle have more, has more of the daisies coming up so thankfully, ah, one of the world's most famous film festivals is back with love mandatory and doors, the social distance thing in place in some countries unable to attend. and like 2 or 3 pieces. recreate the magic y selfridge or the council festival. now frank assessments eastern argument for suggesting that the martin and ministrations playing alone game. it's very much of a warm embrace of the iran nuclear deal because of us domestic politics informed opinions, schools and shelters have been reduced to rubble. how do you think this shapes a generation and their policy? then their life has been shape? why vitamin the in depth analysis of the data global headlines inside story

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what it proved to be an make bonanza for the latin american country. but when they become a guy paradigm in europe, i watering tech valuations, res bubble fears plus lambda gaming goes electric county, the cough on al jazeera the news. this is al jazeera. ah, hi there, i'm can vanelle, this is the new law firm coming up in the next 60 minutes. ah, billionaire richard branson and 5 others take off from new mexico on a mission, kicked off space tourism i. 7