FIRST CIVILIAN FLIGHT BY VIRGIN GALACTIC REACHES SPACE IN JUST 45 MINUTES

Fri 11 August 2023:

A significant step was taken for space tourism.

Virgin Galactic has successfully completed its first civilian space journey.

In the initial phase of the journey, a carrier known as Eve was used. Later, the engine was ignited, reaching an altitude of 85 km.

Approximately 45 minutes after launch, the passengers reached a weightless environment.

Cheers erupted from families and friends watching from below when the craft’s rocket motor fired after it was released from the plane that had carried it aloft. The rocket ship reached about 88km (55 miles) high.

Richard Branson’s company expects to begin offering monthly trips to customers on its winged space plane, joining Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the space tourism business.

Virgin Galactic passenger Jon Goodwin, who was among the first to buy a ticket in 2005, said he had faith that he would someday make the trip. The 80-year-old athlete – he competed in canoeing in the 1972 Olympics – has Parkinson’s disease and wants to be an inspiration to others.

“I hope it shows them that these obstacles can be the start rather than the end to new adventures,” he said in a statement.

Ticket prices were $200,000 when Goodwin signed up. The cost is now $450,000.

He was joined by sweepstakes winner Keisha Schahaff, 46, a health coach from Antigua, and her daughter, Anastatia Mayers, 18, a student at Scotland’s University of Aberdeen. Also on board: two pilots and the company’s astronaut trainer.

The passengers experienced the weightless environment and the view of Earth from kilometers above. The rocket initiated its descent a few minutes later and smoothly reached New Mexico along the same route. Thus, the space journey was successfully completed.

This flight, designated Galactic 02, marks the company’s second commercial flight.

At the end of June, the first flight was conducted with a group of high-ranking members of the Italian Air Force, who gathered for various experiments.

Like Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin aims for the fringes of space, quick ups-and-downs from West Texas. Blue Origin has launched 31 people so far, but flights have been on hold since a rocket crash in September. The capsule, carrying experiments but no passengers, landed intact.

SpaceX is the only private company flying customers all the way into orbit, charging a much heftier price, too: tens of millions of dollars per seat. It’s already flown three private crews. NASA is its biggest customer, relying on SpaceX to ferry its astronauts to and from the International Space Station since 2020.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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