On Sunday, July 11, Virgin Galactic Holdings (NYSE: SPCE) plans to send its founder, Sir Richard Branson, into space on a test flight onboard the VSS Unity. If successful, Branson would become the first billionaire to go to space — just days ahead of a planned trip by Amazon‘s founder Jeff Bezos and his space company Blue Origin.
Share prices of Virgin Galactic temporarily climbed more than 20% in after-hours trading following the July 1 announcement of Branson’s trip, with the stock up roughly 166% over the past year.