Branson hails ‘experience of a lifetime’ after flying to edge of space

He is the first owner-astronaut to take part in a mission, beating Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who plans to reach space in his own rocket through his Blue Origin company

Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson is greeted by school children before heading to board the rocket plane that will fly him to the edge of space from Spaceport America 

Billionaire businessman Richard Branson has reached space aboard his own winged rocket ship hailing it the 'experience of a lifetime.'

Take-off had been delayed by about 90 minutes on Sunday due to bad weather, but a live-stream blog from Virgin Galactic showed the rocket ship in the air at about 3.45pm UK time, and the aircraft had reached 40,000 feet by 4pm.