Virgin Galactic rocketed to the edge of space on Thursday with its first tourists - a former British Olympian who bought his ticket 18 years ago and a mother-daughter duo from the Caribbean. This is the first successful space tourism flight for the American spaceflight company founded by Richard Branson and the Virgin Group conglomerate.
Keisha Schahaff, 46, and her daughter Anastasia Mayers, 18, became the first mother-daughter duo to fly to space together. The mother-daughter duo from Antigua won their tickets in a prize draw. Also on the trip to the edge of space was Jon Goodwin, a former British Olympian.
Goodwin, 80, was among the first to buy a Virgin Galactic ticket in 2005 and feared, after later being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, that he’d be out of luck. Since then he’s climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and cycled back down, and said he hopes his spaceflight shows others with Parkinson’s and other illnesses that “it doesn’t stop you doing things.”
Schahaff, Mayers and Goodwin were accompanied by pilot Kelly Latimer, plane commander and NASA astronaut CJ Sturckow and astronaut instructor Beth Moses as they travelled to space on board the VSS Unity.
The space plane glided back to a runway landing at Spaceport America in the New Mexico desert, after a brief flight that gave passengers a few minutes of weightlessness.
“That was by far the most awesome thing I’ve ever done in my life,” said Jon Goodwin, who competed in canoeing in the 1972 Olympics. He described the trip as a “completely surreal experience.”
The most impressive thing for the ex-Olympian was witnessing the curvature of the earth – “The most impressive thing was looking at Earth from space, the pure clarity was very moving,” he said. “It was far more dramatic than I imagined it would be, the pure acceleration was completely surreal.”
Meanwhile, Anastatia Mayers, a University of Aberdeen student, said the experience was indescribable. “I have no words. The only thought I had the whole time was ‘wow’,” she revealed after the trip.
Mayers added that the experience will help her become more open to adventure. “The experience has grounded me and awoken me - I definitely feel a lot more connected to Earth itself and a lot more motivated to explore and be even more adventurous,” she said.
(With inputs from the Associated Press)
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