space travel to paying customers. rachel crane has more on that. reporter: the countdown is on. and in just hours, entrepreneur richard branson hopes to become the first person to ride a self-funded rocket into su suborbital space. astronaut 001, richard branson. reporter: a launch, nearly two decades in the making. tell me, how do you feel? um, well, i managed to avoid getting excited for 17 years, since we ve started building spaceships and mother ships and space bots and all these things. and i finally got the call from our chief engineer saying that every single box had been ticked on the safety aspect. and that i was um um would i like to go to space? and i hit i hit the roof, i was so excited. reporter: the virgin galactic rocket-powered space plane is set to take off sunday from new mexico. the mother ship will release the
the trip would make branson the first by lone injury to travel to space aboard a vehicle he helped to fund. we have more on this new frontier in the space race. reporter: the countdown is on. in just hours entrepreneur richard branson hopes to become the first person to ride a self-funded rocket into su suborbital space. a launch nearly two decades in the making. tell me how do you feel? well, iman nag to avoid getting excited since we started building space ships and mother ships and all these things. i finally got the call from our chief engineer saying that every single box has been checked on the safety aspect and would i like to go into space. and i hit the roof. i was so excited. reporter: the virgin galactic