Russian Space Chief Invites Oligarchs To Invest In Space Industry

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th July, 2021) Dmitry Rogozin, the head of the Russian state space agency, scolded Russian billionaires on Sunday for wasting their money on earthly possessions and suggested they invest in space exploration.

He called British billionaire Richard Branson's suborbital flight a "landmark event." The Virgin Galactic founder's spaceplane took the 70-year-old and a crew of three up about 62 miles, briefly exposing them to zero gravity.

"I hope that our billionaire oligarchs will someday start spending their money on advancing space technologies and the knowledge of cosmos, rather than on more yachts and all this vanity fair," Rogozin wrote on social media.

Branson said after Sunday's flight that flying to the edge of space was his childhood dream.

"I was once a child with a dream looking up to the stars. Now I'm an adult in a spaceship looking down to our beautiful Earth. To the next generation of dreamers: if we can do this, just imagine what you can do," he tweeted.

Branson's fellow space enthusiasts Elon Musk of SpaceX and Jeff Bezon of Blue Origin congratulated him on the successful flight. Bezos, who will fly to space with his brother on July 20, said he could not wait to "join the club."