Anastatia Mayers, 18, became the youngest person to reach space during the Virgin Galactic 02 flight on Aug. 10.
After 18 years of waiting and despite developing Parkinson’s disease, one of Virgin Galactic’s first customers boarded the company’s VSS Unity spaceship for a suborbital ride that he said was “far more dramatic than I imagined it would be.”
“The pure acceleration—Mach 3 in 8.5 seconds— was completely surreal, and the re-entry ... I would have said was out of control if I didn’t know anything different. But the most impressive thing was looking at Earth from space, just the pure clarity, was very moving,” said Jon Goodwin, 80, who purchased a spaceflight from Virgin Galactic in September 2005.
“It’s without a doubt the most exciting day of my life,” said Goodwin, a former Olympian who competed in the 1972 Munich Games.
Goodwin developed Parkinson’s disease in 2014 and thought Virgin Galactic would balk at flying him aboard Unity, the first in a series of air-launched winged spaceships being developed for tourism, research and training purposes.
“Parkinson’s] has never stopped me from doing what I wanted to do,” Goodwin told reporters after the flight. “One of the nicest things for me was the acceptance by Virgin Galactic ... That [took] enormous credibility.”
Joining Goodwin for Virgin Galactic’s second commercial spaceflight were Keisha Schahaff and her 18-year-old daughter Anastatia Mayers, from Antigua and Barbuda. Schahaff in 2021 won two seats in a sweepstakes to benefit Space for Humanity, a nonprofit that works to expand access to space.
“It was really the best ride ever,” said Schahaff, a personal development coach. “I’m still there right now.”
Virgin Galactic’s chief trainer, Beth Moses, making her fourth flight, rode with the passengers in the crew cabin while Virgin Galactic commander CJ Sturckow, a former NASA astronaut, and pilot Kelly Latimer operated the spaceship during its seventh trip into suborbital space. The flight, known as Galactic 02, marked Latimer’s first spaceflight.
“In my entire career, from the Air Force Academy to being a test pilot for NASA, nothing tops what I have just experienced at the controls of VSS Unity,” Latimer said in a statement after the flight. “Going to space today fulfilled an ambition I’ve had since I was a child.
“It is a privilege to be part of a majority-women crew making history as the most female astronauts flying to space in a single mission,” she added.
Unity’s WhiteKnightTwo carrier jet VSS Eve took off from Spaceport America near Las Cruces, New Mexico, and 10:30 a.m. EDT/8:30 a.m. MDT Aug. 10 to begin Virgin Galactic’s second commercial spaceflight.
The spaceline debuted for commercial service with a June 29 mission for the Italian Air Force and Italy’s National Research Council.
Unity was carried to an altitude of 44,300 ft., then released. As its 65,000-lb.-thrust hybrid rocket motor fired up, the pilots steered the spaceship into a “gamma turn” maneuver to reach the edge of space.
The motor shut down as planned after about 60 sec., leaving Unity to coast to an altitude of 55 mi. Virgin Galactic did not immediately release the exact apogee.
Minutes later, Unity plunged back through the atmosphere to begin a glide back to Spaceport America for a 11:30 a.m. EDT touchdown.
“Today has blown my mind away,” said Goodwin, the first of some 800 ticket holders to fly.
Virgin Galactic is targeting a third commercial flight before the end of next month and up to three flights in the fourth quarter.
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