Skip to main content

Watch Virgin Galactic blast its first tourists to the edge of space

LIVE: Watch the #Galactic02 Spaceflight

Virgin Galactic has successfully completed its first tourism ride to the edge of space.

Recommended Videos

The carrier mothership VMS Eve took off from Spaceport America in New Mexico at 8:30 a.m. local time on Thursday, carrying the rocket-powered VSS Unity aircraft.

On board Unity was 80-year-old Jon Goodwin, a former Olympic athlete from the U.K. who bought his ticket for $250,000 in 2005, when Virgin Galactic was still in the early stages of developing the ride. Since then, Goodwin has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, though he said before the flight that he was “determined not to let it stand in the way of living life to the fullest.”

Also on board was Antiguan Keisha Schahaff, who won a pair of tickets in a raffle organized by Virgin Galactic. As her companion for the experience of a lifetime, Schahaff picked her daughter Anastatia Mayers, a philosophy and physics student in Scotland. The pair have become the first mother and daughter to travel to the edge of space together, and also the first people from the Caribbean to take such a trip.

Live-streamed footage (top) showed the moment Unity fired up its rocket engine just after Eve released the aircraft at around 45,000 feet.

It then roared to an altitude of about 290,400 feet (55 miles/88.5 kilometers), about 7 miles short of the Kármán line, the spot generally regarded as where space begins.

The passengers were able to enjoy amazing views of Earth while at the same time experiencing a few moments of weightlessness inside the cabin before gliding back to base in an experience that lasted around 90 minutes.

Back on terra firma, Schahaff told reporters: “Looking at Earth was the most amazing. It was so comfortable. It really was the best ride ever. I would love to do this again. This experience has given me this beautiful feeling that if I can do this, I can do anything.”

Mayers said she was “shocked at the things that you feel. You are so much more connected to everything than you would expect to be. You felt like a part of the team, a part of the ship, a part of the universe, a part of Earth. It was incredible and I’m still starstruck.”

Goodwin found the ride even more thrilling than he expected, saying: “The pure acceleration, Mach 3 in 8.5 seconds, was completely surreal. The re-entry was a lot more dramatic than I imagined it would be … The most impressive thing was looking at Earth from space. The pure clarity was very moving, quite surreal. It was without a doubt the most exciting day of my life.”

While this was Virgin Galactic’s second commercial flight following one in June that carried three crew members from the Italian Air Force and the National Research Council of Italy, Thursday’s outing was the first one to carry private customers.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
SpaceX powers Bandwagon-3 to orbit. Watch the highlights
SpaceX launches the Bandwagon-3 rideshare mission in April 2025.

SpaceX successfully launched the Bandwagon-3 mission from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Monday night.

Lifting off on time at 8:48 p.m. ET, the rocket carried with it ADD’s 425Sat-3, Tomorrow Companies Inc.’s Tomorrow-S7, and Atmos Space Cargo’s Phoenix reentry capsule.

Read more
How to watch Amazon launch its first Project Kuiper satellites
Amazon's Project Kuiper Satellite payload.

Amazon is going into competition with SpaceX, with its Project Kuiper broadband satellite-based internet service intended to rival Starlink. The first launch of Project Kuiper satellites is scheduled for Monday April 28, and if you'd like to watch along at home then the event will be livestreamed.

The launch will use a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, and will take place at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The mission, named "KA-01", will carry 27 satellites into an orbit 280 miles above the Earth's surface.

Read more
SpaceX is about to try something new with its mighty Starship rocket
The Starship launching from Starbase in October 2024.

SpaceX has just test fired a Super Heavy booster ahead of the Starship’s ninth flight test.

The ground-based firing of the world's most powerful rocket took place at SpaceX’s Starbase site in Boca Chica, Texas, on Thursday.

Read more