The first space tourists transported by the American company Virgin Galactic reached space on Thursday August 10, announced the company founded by billionaire Richard Branson, fulfilling a promise made two decades ago.
The three passengers – Jon Goodwin, 80, Keisha Schahaff, 46, and his daughter Anastatia Mayers, 18 – spent a few minutes in space, from where they were able to admire the Earth and briefly float in zero gravity, according to the company’s video broadcast. They were accompanied by a Virgin Galactic employee responsible for supervising them and two pilots.
This mission, named Galactic 02, is the company’s second commercial flight, after a first carried out at the end of June. This one had transported high-ranking officers of the Italian Air Force who had carried out several experiments, and not civilians making the trip for the pleasure.
Before that, the company had carried out several test flights, including one with Richard Branson, in July 2021. This is the seventh time that the VSS Unity spacecraft has gone into space.
A huge carrier plane first took off from a conventional runway in New Mexico, then after a period of ascent dropped the craft, which looks like a large private jet. It then turned on its engine and accelerated vertically until it exceeded 80 kilometers in altitude – the limit marking the beginning of space, according to the American army. The spacecraft reached 88 kilometers at its highest, a commentator announced during the live video. It then quickly began its descent while gliding, before landing on the same runway.
Eight hundred customers on the waiting list
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 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. Richard Branson was again in Antigua and Barbuda on Thursday to watch the flight alongside the travellers’ family, he said on X (formerly Twitter), posting a photo of him and Keisha Schahaff’s mother.
The third passenger, Briton Jon Goodwin, participated in the Olympic Games in 1972. Suffering from Parkinson’s disease since 2014, he is the second person struck by this disease to go into space. At 80, however, he is not the oldest – this record is held by William Shatner, at the age of 90.
Less than seven hundred people have been to space so far, according to Virgin Galactic, which now promises one spaceflight a month. About eight hundred customers bought their ticket – for a price initially between 200,000 and 250,000 dollars per passenger (between 180,000 and 227,000 euros), which was later raised to 450,000 dollars (408,000 euros ).
Virgin Galactic’s space program has been years behind schedule, notably due to an accident in 2014 that killed a pilot.
Virgin Galactic competes with billionaire Jeff Bezos’ company, Blue Origin, which also offers short suborbital flights, and has already sent thirty-one people into space. But since an accident in September 2022 during an unmanned flight, its rocket has been grounded. Blue Origin promised in March to resume ” Soon “ his space flights.