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”.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
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.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
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.
The moment could have felt so different. It should have felt so different.
It was supposed to come a long time ago, and it was supposed to be the outcome of a peace process, of reconciliation, of understanding, of coexistence and of healing.
If it had happened the right way, then we’d be celebrating two states living alongside each other, coexisting, sharing a capital city.
As it happened: France recognises Palestinian state
Destroyed buildings in Gaza, as seen from Israeli side of the border.
Pic: Reuters
Instead, the recognition of Palestine as a state comes out of the rubble of Gaza.
It has come as a last-ditch effort to save all vanishing chances of a Palestinian state.
Essentially, the countries which have recognised Palestine here at the UN in New York are jumping to the endpoint and hope to now fill in the gaps.
Those gaps are huge.
Even before the horror of the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, there was almost no realistic prospect of a two-state solution.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Two-state solution in ‘profound peril’
Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank and Benjamin Netanyahu’s divide-and-conquer strategy for the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza had made reconciliation increasingly hard.
The Hamas attack set back what little hope there was even further, while settlement expansion by the Israelis in the West Bank accelerated since then.
An updated map of Israel and Palestine on the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office website after the UK recognised the state of Palestine
The same questions which have made all this so intractable remain.
How to share a capital city? Who controls Jerusalem’s Old City, where the holy sites are located? If it’s shared, then how?
What happens to the settlements in the West Bank? If land swaps take place, then where? What happens to Gaza? Who governs the Palestinians?
And how are the moderates on both sides emboldened to dominate the discourse and the policy?
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Two-state solution ‘encourages terrorism’
Hope rests with Trump
Right now, Palestinian extremism is holding out in Gaza with the hostages, and Israeli extremism is dominant on the other side, with Netanyahu now threatening to fully annex the West Bank as a reaction to the recognition declarations at the UN.
It all feels pretty bleak and desperate. If there is cause for some hope, it rests with Donald Trump.
Donald Trump is the only man who can influence Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu (below). Pic: AP
Pic: Reuters
Over the next 24 hours in New York, he will meet key Arab and Muslim leaders from the Middle East and Asia to present his latest plan for peace in Gaza.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia, and Pakistan will all participate in the meeting.
Delegates applaud after Emmanuel Macron announced France’s recognition of a state of Palestine. Pic: AP
They will listen to his plan, some may offer peacekeeping troops (a significant development if they do), some may offer to provide funding to rebuild the strip and, crucially, all are likely to tell him that his Abraham Accords plan – to forge ahead with diplomatic normalisation between Muslim nations and Israel – will not happen if Israel pushes ahead with any West Bank annexation.
Netanyahu will address the UN at the end of the week, before travelling to the White House on Monday, where he will tell Trump what he plans to do next in both Gaza and the West Bank.
Read more from Sky News:
Typhoon brings 183mph winds as thousands evacuated
Flights suspended at European airport after drone sightings
If Trump wants his Abraham Accords to expand and not collapse – and remember the accords represent a genuine diplomatic game changer for the region, one Trump is rightly proud of – then he will force Netanyahu to stop in Gaza and stop in the West Bank.
He is the only man in the world who can.
World
Israel is increasingly ostracised – and no matter how strong its army, it’s not a good place to be
Emmanuel Macron was in his element. Touring the UN’s main hall, hugging fellow leaders before taking to the podium.
He was here to make history. France, the country that carved up the Middle East over a hundred years ago along with Britain, finally giving the Palestinians what they believe is long overdue.
As it happened: France recognises Palestinian state
Yvette Cooper witnessed the event looking on. Her prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, did the same over the weekend. Foregoing such hallowed surroundings, he beat the French to it by a day.
“Peace is much more demanding, much more difficult than all wars,” said Macron, “but the time has come.”
There were cheers as he recognised the state of Palestine.
The time for what? Not for peace that is for sure. The war in Gaza rages and the West Bank simmers with settler violence against Palestinians.
The French and British believe Israel is actively working against the possibility of a Palestinian state. Attacks on Palestinians, land seizures, the relentless pace of settlement construction is finishing off the chances of a two-state solution to the conflict, so time for unilateral action they believe.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Could UK recognition of Palestinian state affect US relationship?
Without the horizon of a state of their own, Palestinians will resort to more and more extreme means.
The Israelis say they have already done so on 7 October and this move only rewards the wicked extremism of Hamas.
But the Netanyahu government has undeniably sought to divide and weaken the Palestinians and has always opposed a Palestinian state.
Israel still has the support of Donald Trump, but opinion polls suggest even in America public sentiment is moving against them. That shift will be hard to reverse.
Read more:
Will Trump force Netanyahu’s hand?
More than three quarters of the UN’s member nations now recognise a state of Palestine, four out of five of the security council’s permanent members.
The move is hugely problematic. Where exactly is the state, what are its borders, will it now be held to account for its extremists, who exactly is its government?
But more and more countries believe it had to happen. That leaves Israel increasingly ostracised and for a small country in a difficult neighbourhood that is not a good place to be, however strong it is militarily.
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.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Sports3 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment12 months agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024