Reuters Science News Summary

Following is a summary of current science news briefs.

Virgin Galactic completes crewed space test, more flights soon

A Virgin Galactic rocket plane reached space on Thursday and returned safely to the California desert, capping years of testing to become the first U.S. commercial human flight to breach Earth's atmosphere since America's shuttle program ended in 2011. The successful test flight presages a new era of civilian space travel that could kick off as soon as next year, with Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic battling billionaire-backed ventures such as Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, to be the first to offer suborbital flights to fare-paying tourists.

Curry agrees to lunar lab visit: NASA

Three-time NBA champion Stephen Curry will take space agency NASA up on its offer to tour its lunar lab after he sparked controversy by saying he did not believe humans had ever been to the Moon, comments he later called a joke. Allard Beutel, a spokesman for the agency who this week invited Curry to tour the Johnson Space Center in Houston, told science publication Inverse on Thursday the Golden State guard said he would be willing to make the trip.

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