2023-08-10 15:54:11
Virgin Galactic took its first tourists on a brief trip to space on Thursday, fulfilling a promise made two decades ago by billionaire Richard Branson, founder of the American company.
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The three passengers of the Virgin Galactic ship, Jon Goodwin, 80, Keisha Schahaff, 46, and her daughter Anastatia Mayers, 18, spent a few minutes in space on Thursday August 10 from where they might admire the curvature from Earth and briefly float in zero gravity, according to the company’s video feed. A first for Virgin Galactic, twenty years following the promise made by its founder, billionaire Richard Branson.
“It was without a doubt the most exciting day of my life,” Briton Jon Goodwin said following the trip. “It was much more impressive than I imagined.” This former participant in the 1972 Olympic Games, diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2014, became the second person with this disease to go into space.
“I waited 18 years,” recalled Jon Goodwin, who bought his ticket to space in 2005. But the experience “surpassed my wildest dreams,” he said.
The passengers were accompanied in the ship by a Virgin Galactic employee, responsible for supervising them, and two pilots.
One hour trip
This mission, named Galactic 02, was the company’s third in three months, and the second commercial flight, following a first carried out at the end of June. But this one had transported senior Italian Air Force officers who had carried out several experiments on board, and not civilians making the trip purely for pleasure.
Before that, the company had carried out several test flights with company employees on board, including one with Richard Branson himself, in July 2021. In total, Thursday was the seventh time the spacecraft had visited. in the space.
A huge carrier plane first took off from a conventional runway in New Mexico at 8:30 a.m. local time (2:30 p.m. GMT). Then following a period of ascension, he dropped below him the ship, VSS Unity, which looks like a large private jet.
It then turned on its engine and accelerated vertically until it exceeded 80 km in altitude – the limit marking the beginning of space according to the American army. The craft reached an altitude of 88 km at its peak.
He then quickly began his descent while gliding, before landing on the same runway, only one hour following takeoff.
Next flight in September
Keisha Schahaff and her daughter Anastatia Mayers are both from Antigua and Barbuda in the Caribbean, and won their ticket by participating in a fundraiser organized by Virgin Galactic.
The happy news had been announced to Keisha Schahaff by Richard Branson in person, who had surprised her by going to her house to give her her astronaut suit.
He was back in Antigua and Barbuda on Thursday to watch the flight alongside his family, he posted on social media, posting a photo of him and Keisha Schahaff’s mother.
Fewer than 700 people have been to space so far, according to Virgin Galactic, which is now promising one spaceflight a month – the next in September.
About 800 customers, including several celebrities, bought their tickets – at a price initially between $200,000 and $250,000 per passenger, which was later raised to $450,000.
The space program of Virgin Galactic, a company founded in 2004, had fallen behind for years, in particular because of an accident in 2014 which had caused the death of a pilot.
Virgin Galactic competes with billionaire Jeff Bezos’ company, Blue Origin, which also offers short suborbital flights, and has already sent 31 people into space.
But since an accident in September 2022 during an unmanned flight, its rocket has been grounded. Blue Origin had promised in March to resume its space flights “soon”.
With AFP
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