Witness Virgin Galactic’s Historic Launch of the First Ever Space Tourist Flight at 11am ET
Virgin Galactic could achieve another significant accomplishment today in its mission to offer suborbital space travel. If conditions permit and all goes according to plan, the company’s inaugural private passenger flight will depart from its Spaceport America facility at 11AM EDT. While Virgin Galactic’s first commercial flight occurred in late June, it transported Italian government employees, including two Air Force members, to space. However, this time, the three passengers are civilians, with one of them being the company’s inaugural paying customer.
That distinction belongs to Jon Goodwin, a British Olympian who competed in the 1972 Games in Munich as a rower. According to the BBC, Goodwin paid $250,000 for her ticket back in 2005 and was worried she wouldn’t get on the flight after she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2014. The other two passengers are a mother-daughter tandem. Caribbean, Keisha Schahaff and Anastatia Mayers. Schahaff won two places in a fundraising raffle for the non-profit Space for Humanity and had chosen to bring her daughter, a physics student at the University of Aberdeen in the UK, with her.
The company’s VSS Unity spacecraft leaves Earth attached to the VMS Eve aircraft. At 50,000 feet, Unity is dropped by the mothership, which then fires up its rocket engines to continue its journey to the edge of space. The spacecraft shuts down its engines and glides across space before landing, giving passengers three minutes to enjoy weightlessness in the cabin, gazing at views of our planet from Unity’s 17 windows. At least that’s what passengers are supposed to experience. As for the rest of us, we can watch their ascent via a broadcast released by Virgin Galactic live on its website.
Be a part of history TOMORROW as we launch the inspiring crew of #Galactic02 to space! Watch the livestream at 9:00 am MDT | 11:00 am EDT and sign up so you don’t miss it: https://t.co/5UalYTpiHL pic.twitter.com/LmM7o9sTxM
— Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) August 9, 2023
