Branson’s deep-sea mission shelved

LONDON: Sir Richard Branson has shelved one of the most ambitious expeditions to reach one of the world’s last frontiers — bottom of Pacific’s Mariana Trench.
In a major blow just months after his Virgin Galactic space rocket crashed on a test flight in California’s Mojave desert, killing a pilot, Branson has confirmed that his plans to get wealthy passengers to the bottom of the sea for a fee of upto $500,000 onboard the Virgin Oceanic’s DeepFlight Challenger has been put off for the time being.
DeepFlight Challenger was launched in 2011 to undertake “the last great challenge for humans” besides diving to the Puerto Rico trench 28,000ft below the Atlantic surface.