The three other mission specialists are Beth Moses, the company's chief astronaut instructor; Virgin Galactic's lead operations engineer Colin Bennett; and Sirisha Bandla, a research operations and government affairs vice president. All I need is a license from the FAA, we put a fence around a gravel pad, and we launch from there in five days with five people," Kemp said.

The company's risk factors, listed in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, also give investors a sense of what challenges Astra may see as it works toward its goals.As for Sunday's flight, Branson said this week that he is excited, "and I really don't think there’s anything there to be scared about." Astra's board of directors includes Kemp, co-founder and chief technology officer Dr. Adam London, Advance executive Nomi Bergman and ACME venture capital partner Scott Stanford.

If they succeed, their ventures will be taken more seriously," Caceres said. "There's plenty of multimillionaires in the world that would like to go up on an adventure, so long as they see it as relatively safe." Astra laid out an aggressive timeline for scaling production and generating revenue, starting with its first commercial launch this summer. Is it possible theoretically? Yes. But, in basically four years, is one company going to be able to support that kind of schedule? It's ambitious – nobody's ever done it." Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, along with fellow billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's SpaceX, are competing head-to-head in the emerging business of space tourism, though Musk has a big head start. The Virgin brand, including Branson's airline and former record label, has long been associated with exploits of derring-do by its flamboyant founder. Branson set a new record for the fastest boat crossing of the Atlantic in 1986, a year after his initial attempt ended with a Royal Air Force helicopter rescue when his vessel capsized.SpaceX, which plans to send its first all-civilian crew (without Musk) into orbit in September, has already launched numerous cargo payloads and astronauts to the International Space Station. It's honestly not a race," Branson told Reuters in an interview earlier this week. "If it's a race, it's a race to produce wonderful spaceships that can make many more people be able to access space. And I think that's both of our aims."