Virgin Galactic takes first tourists to edge of space – as British ex-Olympian calls flight ‘most exciting day of my life’
Virgin Galactic has taken its first tourists to the edge of space, with an 80-year-old British ex-Olympian saying the trip “exceeded my wildest dreams”.
On board the VSS Unity were Jon Goodwin, from Newcastle, who had competed in canoeing at the 1972 Games in Munich, Keisha Schahaff, 46, and her 18-year-old daughter Anastatia Mayers, a University of Aberdeen student.
The crew took the passengers about 55 miles (88km) above Earth where they experienced zero gravity during the flight which lasted just over an hour.
Speaking later about the trip, Mr Goodwin said it was a “completely surreal experience” and “the most exciting day of my life”.
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Space flight ‘most exciting day of my life’
He said: “The most impressive thing was looking at Earth from space, the pure clarity was very moving.”
“It was far more dramatic than I imagined it would be, the pure acceleration was completely surreal,” he said.
Mr Goodwin, who has Parkinson’s disease, said he wanted to show the illness “doesn’t stop you from doing things [that are] not normal”.
“I just hope some good comes out of that.”
The octogenarian bought his ticket for $200,000 in 2005 and was the fourth ever person to do so.
He paid tribute to “the acceptance of Virgin Galactic”.
“When I signed up, I didn’t have Parkinson’s. When, nine years ago, I contracted the disease I thought that’s the end of me going into space.
“They’ve done various health checks but they never stopped me doing what I wanted to do – they need an enormous amount of credit for that,” he said.
(L-R) Anastatia Mayers, Keisha Schahaff and Jon Goodwin during their news conference
The space tourists pictured boarding their Virgin Galactic flight. Pic: AP
Meanwhile, Anastatia Mayers said she had taken a University of Aberdeen pin into space because “they supported me through all of this”. She is studying physics and philosophy at the university.
She said “the experience has grounded me and awoken me – I definitely feel a lot more connected to Earth itself and a lot more motivated to explore and be even more adventurous”.
The mother and daughter, who are from Antigua and Barbuda, won their places in a prize draw.
The pair were the first astronauts from the Caribbean and the first mother and daughter to go into space.
Keisha Schahaff said: “I’m still up there, I’m not here yet, and it’s just amazing that you can land so smoothly on the runway coming back from space. It was so comfortable, it was really the best ride ever, and I would love to do this again.”
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First space flight for tourists lifts off
Pilots CJ Sturckow and Kelly Latimer, alongside astronaut instructor Beth Moses, joined the tourists on the VSS Unity, which took off around 8.30am local time (3.30pm UK time) at Spaceport America in New Mexico.
The VSS Unity separated from its carrier plane, the VMS Eve, at 9.17am (4.17pm UK time), at an altitude of about 44,500ft, and ignited its rocket to fire upwards for around a minute.
Just two minutes later, footage from inside VSS Unity showed the passengers out of their seats, weightless and peering at the Earth outside the rocket’s windows.
Further footage from cameras mounted outside of the rocket showed the curvature of the Earth.
The VSS Unity landed at Spaceport America at 9.33am (4.33pm UK time). It was met by applause from those watching on from Virgin Galactic, with the passengers smiling and nodding.
It was Virgin Galactic’s seventh trip to space since 2018, but the first with tourists.
It held its inaugural commercial trip earlier this summer, when three Italian citizens were taken into low orbit for scientific research experiments.
The company, founded by Sir Richard Branson, is set to offer monthly trips to customers on its winged space plane, joining Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the space tourism business.
China will evacuate 400,000 people over a super typhoon that slammed into the Philippines and Taiwan today.
Super Typhoon Ragasa, which is heading to southeastern China, has sustained winds of 134mph.
Thousands of people have already been evacuated from homes and schools in the Philippines and Taiwan, with hundreds of thousands more to leave their homes in China.
Filipino forecasters said it slammed into Panuitan Island off Cagayan province with gusts of up to 183mph on Monday.
More than 8,200 were evacuated to safety in Cagayan while 1,220 fled to emergency shelters in Apayao, which is prone to flash floods and landslides.
The projected route of Super Typhoon Ragasa, by the Japanese Typhoon Centre. Pic: Japan Meteorological Agency
Domestic flights were suspended in northern provinces hit by the typhoon, and fishing boats and inter-island ferries were prohibited from leaving ports over rough seas.
In Taiwan’s southern Taitung and Pingtung counties, closures were ordered in some coastal and mountainous areas along with the Orchid and Green islands.
Officials in southern Chinese tech hub, Shenzhen, said they planned to relocate around 400,000 people including people in low-lying and flood-prone areas.
Strong waves batter Basco, Batanes province, northern Philippines, on Monday. (AP Photo/Justine Mark Pillie Fajardo)
Shenzhen’s airport added it will halt flights from Tuesday night.
In Fujian province, on China’s southeast coast, 50 ferry routes were suspended.
According to China’s National Meteorological Centre, the typhoon will make landfall in the coastal area between Shenzhen city and Xuwen county in Guangdong province on Wednesday.
The International Space Station captures the eye of Typhoon Ragasa. (Pic: NASA/Reuters)
A tropical cyclone with sustained winds of 115mph or higher is categorised in the Philippines as a super typhoon.
The term was adopted years ago to demonstrate the urgency tied to extreme weather disturbances.
Ragasa was heading west and was forecast to remain in the South China Sea until at least Wednesday while passing south of Taiwan and Hong Kong, before landfall on the China mainland.
The Philippines’ weather agency warned there was “a high risk of life-threatening storm surge with peak heights exceeding three metres within the next 24 hours over the low-lying or exposed coastal localities” of the northern provinces of Cagayan, Batanes, Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur.
Power was cut out on Calayan island and in the entire northern mountain province of Apayao, west of Cagayan, disaster officials said.
There were no immediate reports of casualties from Ragasa, which is known locally in the Philippines as Nando.
On Monday, Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos Jr suspended government work and all classes on Monday in the capital, Manila, and 29 provinces in the main northern Luzon region.
The rock has been hurled into the lake and now the ripples are spreading.
The UK and several other Western countries recognising a Palestinian state was never likely to be an action without consequences.
So what happens next? Well, firstly, a surge of angry rhetoric from across the Israeli political spectrum, almost all of whom described this as a victory for Hamas.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it “an absurd prize for terrorism” while Yair Lapid, leader of the opposition, described recognition as “a bad move and a reward for terror”.
Former defence minister Benny Gantz said it “emboldens Hamas and extends the war”, and Naftali Bennett, the man who may well usurp Netanyahu as prime minister next year, said recognition could lead to a “full-blown terror state”.
The forum that represents the families of hostages called it “a catastrophic failure”.
‘Annexation’ is incredibly complicated
So that’s unity in condemnation. But words are one thing; actions are another. And the more extreme ministers in Netanyahu’s cabinet, who carry great weight, are coalescing around a single rallying cry – the demand is annexation of the West Bank.
It sounds blunt, but it is incredibly complicated. For one thing, simply defining what is meant by “annexation” is near-on impossible.
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UK formally recognises Palestine
The West Bank, which a growing number of Israelis refer to by its biblical name of Judea and Samaria, has been subject to Israeli military occupation since 1967.
In a sense, it is already partly annexed – the West Bank is dotted with settlements and outposts that are home to hundreds of thousands of Israelis. So annexation could mean supporting and expanding those developments.
Read more:
What recognising a Palestinian state actually means
Why UK’s Palestine move matters in the Middle East
Or annexation could mean sending in more soldiers, more equipment and taking more land, potentially in the Jordan valley.
It could mean pumping resources into the controversial and internationally criticised E1 settlement programme, which would divide the West Bank in half.
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But it could even mean the very thing that you probably think of when you hear the word “annexation”. It could mean Israel flooding the area with soldiers and claiming the land for itself – an invasion, in other words.
It might sound appealing to the likes of Israeli far-right politicians Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. At the same time, it would infuriate Arab nations, who are already seething that Israel chose to launch an airstrike on a building in Qatar to try, seemingly unsuccessfully, to kill Hamas leaders.
A loyalty test for the US
Full annexation would test the loyalty of the United States, which has, so far, supported Netanyahu through thick and thin. The attack on Doha has already prompted a mild rebuke; Israel’s government will not want to risk losing the backing of its most important diplomatic ally.
President Trump is due to meet Arab leaders on Tuesday, who will tell him of their fears for the future of the West Bank.
This will not be easy for Netanyahu. He has to balance the need to retain Trump’s friendship and support with a desire to dissuade other nations from recognising the State of Palestine, along with the need to keep Arab neighbours from turning against him while keeping Smotrich and Ben-Gvir in his cabinet.
So Netanyahu is going to bide his time. He will not make a decision on next steps until he has returned from visiting both the United Nations and the White House.
The immediate future of the West Bank might well be decided on a flight back from America.
A British-Egyptian activist who has spent years in prison has been pardoned by Egypt’s president, according to his lawyer.
Alaa Abd el-Fattah became a prominent campaigner during protests in Cairo in 2011 that led to the ousting of former president Hosni Mubarak.
In 2014, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison – later reduced to five – for protesting without permission.
He was released in 2019 but arrested again for sharing a Facebook post about human rights abuses in Egyptian prisons.
It led to another five-year term in 2021 for “spreading fake news”.
High-profile local and international campaigns have called for his release and Egypt removed him from its “terrorism” list last year.
Mr Fattah has British citizenship through his UK-born mother, Laila Soueif, who went on hunger strike over his case and met Sir Keir Starmer to push for her son’s freedom.
The 43-year-old also undertook multiple hunger strikes of his own to highlight his case.
Today his lawyer, Khaled Ali, writing in Arabic on Facebook, posted: “God is the judge. The President of the Republic has issued a decree pardoning Alaa Abdel Fattah. Congratulations.”
Mr el-Fattah’s mother (middle) at a protest calling for her son’s release in 2023. Pic: PA
His sister said on X that she and her mother were “heading to the prison now to inquire from where Alaa will be released and when”.
“Omg I can’t believe we get our lives back!” she added.
The Egyptian president’s office said another five prisoners were also pardoned – but it’s unclear exactly when they will all be freed.
Mr Ali said he expected his client to be released from Wadi Natron prison, north of Cairo, in the next few days.
Alaa Abd el-Fattah has spent nearly all of the last decade in prison. Pic: Reuters
Mr Fattah became known for his blogging and social media activity during the Arab Spring protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square 14 years ago.
But a wide-ranging crackdown on Islamists, liberals and leftists by the new president, former army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, led to the activist being imprisoned for the first time.
During his second spell in jail, his family said he was locked up without sunlight, exercise and books – and abused by the guards.
Mr Fattah’s mother – a former maths professor – and lawyer father, who died in 2014, were also both activists.
Khaled Ali tried to get Mr Fattah freed in 2024, arguing his client’s two years of pre-trial detention should be counted, but prosecutors resisted and said he wouldn’t be allowed out until January 2027.
The refusal prompted his mother to begin another long hunger strike in September last year.
She only ended it two months ago following pleas from her family after she lost 35kg and became seriously ill.
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The activist’s mother lost 35kg during her most recent hunger strike. Pic: Reuters
Human rights groups say tens of thousands of prisoners of conscience have been incarcerated under the current president.
They allege they are denied due process and suffer abuse and torture – claims denied by Egyptian officials.
Chair of the foreign affairs select committee, the MP Emily Thornberry, said on X that she was “absolutely delighted” about Mr Fattah’s pardon.
She posted: “Laila, Mona, Sanaa and Alaa’s entire family’s tireless campaign for his release has been incredibly moving – their love for him was clear when I met Sanaa last year,
“I am so glad they will get to see him come home.”
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