A former Olympian, a philosophy and physics student, and her mother were the first three all-civilian crew members to travel on a space flight. They did it with Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic company last Thursday.
The Galactic-02 Mission led the three people up to an altitude of 85 kilometers, taking off from Spaceport America, in New Mexico, United States.
While the former English athlete Jon Goodwin he bought his ticket in 2005, when it then cost 250 thousand dollars, Ana Mayers and her mother, Keisha Schahaff, from Antigua and Barbuda, won their tickets in a competition.
Goodwin, 80, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s long after buying his ticket; however, it was not a brake on the trip.
“Virgin never stopped me from doing what I wanted,” said the Englishman. “I hope to instill in people around the world (that the disease) It doesn’t stop you from doing things that are out of the ordinary.”
Most important of all: this became a decisive step in the era of space tourism.
Do you want to travel with Virgin Galactic? This is what you should know first.
You don’t really go into space…
Technically it reaches the limits, the vicinity of the so-called Karman line, between Earth’s atmosphere and space.
As we have said, the Virgin Galactic flight It reaches an altitude of 85 kilometers, where there is no gravity, but in that instance it lasts a few minutes. The total duration of the trip is 70 minutes.
How much does it cost to travel as a tourist?
The price is of 450 thousand dollars. In Goodwin’s case, in 2005 he paid $250,000, and the trip was delayed because of all the problems Virgin Galactic had to solve to make flights safer.
This is the preparation
The first thing you should know is that there a pre-waiting list of more than 800 people, all willing to pay the 450 thousand dollars of the ticket.
The second thing is that you have to submit to a training of more than a year, with work in zero gravity, medical check-ups and preparation of the suit.
These are the risks
People don’t travel alone: there are former NASA members in charge of the flight. In the case of the one carried out this month, they were Kelly Latimer and CJ Sturckow, along with flight instructor Beth Moses. In this sense, there is little risk.
Regarding technical malfunctions, Virgin Galactic’s investment over the years has been extensive, so the chances of damage are quite low.
finally, front to the danger of collisions with space debris, Virgin has a system to detect and avoid any object in the way.