Virgin Galactic’s first space tourists had a ‘surreal experience’

The dreams we have as children often stick with us for the rest of our lives.

And if your dream involved venturing to the stars, space tourism has opened up another avenue for those who didn’t study to become astronauts — albeit at a hefty price.

Those who have been willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a ticket to ride to the edge of space have also endured a lengthy wait, and for most of them it’s not over yet.

Billionaire Richard Branson founded Virgin Galactic in 2004, and it built up a backlog of 800 paying passengers. After years of missed deadlines, the company finally started delivering on its long-promised journeys with an inaugural commercial launch in June funded by the Italian air force.

Now, three more space travelers have a cosmic tale to tell.

Defying gravity

Space tourists (from left) Jon Goodwin, Anastatia Mayers and her mother, Keisha Schahaff, pose for photos ahead of their Thursday flight.Andres Leighton/AP

Virgin Galactic’s rocket-powered space plane carried its first group of tourists on a brief trip Thursday.

The lucky trio included the first Olympian and mother-daughter duo to travel to space.

Entrepreneur and health and wellness coach Keisha Schahaff and her daughter Anastatia Mayers were the first space travelers from Antigua. They were joined by Jon Goodwin, who competed as a canoeist in the 1972 Munich Summer Games and became the second person with Parkinson’s disease to travel to space.

Mayers said she was “starstruck” by the experience of glimpsing Earth, and Goodwin described the hour-long journey as “a completely surreal experience.”

Separately, Russia and India are in a lunar space race to see which of their respective uncrewed spacecraft will land on the moon first in a couple of weeks.

Source: Ashley Strickland