Richard Branson, the press, and the space in between

It’s space, Richard—at least as NASA knows it. Yesterday, the British billionaire Richard Branson, two pilots, and three other people rode a rocket plane operated by Virgin Galactic, an arm of Branson’s business empire, fifty three and a half miles into the air—a test run for the sort of private space flight that may soon be available to normal people (or, at least, normal people with a few hundred thousand dollars to spare). The flight generated a lot of hype, though there was also some...