Virgin Galactic Flies Its First Privately Funded Space Tourists - by b0yle
Jon Goodwin — an 80-year-old British adventurer who competed as a canoeist in the 1972 Olympics — also broke barriers on today’s Galactic 02 flight. In 2005, he was one of the first customers to reserve a spot with Virgin Galactic, back when the price was $200,000.
Then, almost a decade ago, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Today he became only the second person with Parkinson’s to take a space trip. “When I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, I thought, ‘Well, that’s it. They’re not going to accept me any longer,'”. “The fact that I am now one of three [on] the first commercial trip to go into space, with suffering with Parkinson’s for nine years, just shows you this attitude of ‘Space for All’ is a wonderful attitude.” Rounding out the crew were Virgin Galactic pilots C.J. Sturckow and Kelly Latimer, and chief astronaut instructor Beth Moses. This was the first spaceflight for Latimer. Today’s flight profile followed the routine that was set during Virgin Galactic’s test flights, plus aThe SpaceShipTwo rocket plane known as VSS Unity was slung underneath its twin-fuselage carrier airplane, VMS Eve, for takeoff from Spaceport America in New Mexico at 8:30 a.m. MT . About 47 minutes later, Unity was released from Eve at an altitude of 44,300 feet and fired up its rocket motor for the climb to a maximum height of a little more than 290,000 feet . That altitude exceeded the 50-mile space boundary as defined by NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration — but stayed below the internationally recognized 100-kilometer space boundary known as the Karman Line. At the top of the ride, the riders in Unity’s passenger cabin unstrapped themselves from their seats and experienced a few minutes of weightlessness. They also marveled at views of a curving Earth beneath the black sky of space. They returned to their seats for the high-G descent — and then unfurled an Antiguan flag to celebrate their milestone. Virgin Galactic’s webcast showed a crowd of well-wishers on Antigua cheering on the spacefliers — and one of those well-wishers was the company’s billionaire founder, Richard Branson.
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