2023-08-10 20:56:24
The space company Virgin Galactic, founded by billionaire Richard Branson, managed to transport three tourists into space this Thursday, August 10.
Space tourism continues to grow. After Blue Origin, the company of Jeff Bezos, its competitor Richard Branson, founder of the company Virgin Galactic, succeeded in sending its first three tourists into space this Thursday, August 10.
The three passengers, Jon Goodwin, 80, Keisha Schahaff, 46, and his daughter Anastatia Mayers, 18, boarded the VSS Unity spacecraft, accompanied by a Virgin Galactic employee and two pilots. They were able to take advantage of a few minutes in space to admire the curvature of the Earth and float in weightlessness.
It was the company’s second commercial flight, but the first, which took off last June, carried senior Italian air force officers, who had also carried out experiments on board, and not civilians like this Thursday.
Keisha Schahaff and her daughter Anastatia Mayers, from Antigua and Barbuda in the Caribbean, won their ticket by participating in a fundraiser organized by Virgin Galactic. The third passenger, Briton Jon Goodwin, participated in the Olympic Games in 1972, and was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2014. He thus became the second person with this disease to travel in space.
According to a communiqué of the company Virgin Galactic, this flight, called Galactic 02, stands out from the others by various records: that of the youngest person to go into space and the third oldest person. It is also, according to the American company, the first time that female astronauts from the Caribbean have flown into space, as well as the first for a mother-daughter duo, but also the first majority female flight.
Virgin Galactic’s space program has been years behind schedule, notably due to an accident in 2014 that killed a pilot. Richard Branson’s company remains in direct competition with Blue Origin, that of Jeff Bezos, which has already sent around thirty tourists into space.
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