A Scots astronaut made history by jetting into space on Virgin Galactic’s first commercial space flight yesterday.
Colin Bennett’s proud family in Scotland watched the 38-year-old successfully complete a 90-minute research flight - paving the way for billionaire boss Sir Richard Branson to sell tickets to paying tourists later this summer.
SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity launched at 11 am from New Mexico (4pm UK time) - in a mission dubbed ‘Galactic 01’ - which was only publicly announced on Monday.
Colin’s auntie, who lives on the Isle of Bute, said her nephew was born in Scotland, before moving to England when he was a child and said the family were “all on tenterhooks” as they prepared to watch the launch.
Ann Harvie said: “Colin is Scottish. He was born here. His dad is from Glasgow and his mum from the Scottish Highlands.”
Joining Colin, an astronaut instructor, on yesterday’s flight were three other crew from the Italian Air Force and National Research Council of Italy - Col. Walter Villadei, Pantaleone Carlucci and Lt. Col. Angelo Landolfi, plus two Virgin Galactic staff.
The spaceplane was launched in mid-air from a carrier plane at an altitude of just over nine miles with a rocket then firing the craft and its crew into sub-orbital space at least 50 miles above the Earth.
Once the spaceplane reaches the edge of space, it will hover in place to let passengers experience zero gravity, and the views of both space and Earth from windows in the roof and sides of the aircraft.
Branson’s private space tourism company now hopes to send tourists to space monthly from August.
A ticket will set you back $450,000 (£356,000) and “demand is high”, according to the company’s website, with several hundred customers already in line to fly.
A listers including Tom Hanks, Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga are reported to be amongst those who want to go to space.
Speaking for Virgin Galactic’s live coverage of the launch, Colin said: “Humans are a very adventurous species. It’s very natural for us to want to go and explore space.”
Colin is responsible for training and preparing the passengers who will jet off.
His all-important task yesterday was ensuring what the quality of the experience is like travelling aboard while the research crew also conducted 13 experiments examining biomedicine thermo-fluid dynamics and microgravity on yesterday’s flight.
Colin, who grew up in North Somerset, was also on board a successful test flight travelling with Sir Branson in 2021.
He has a master’s in aerospace engineering and was a flight physics engineer for the defence tech company QinetiQ. Colin later worked at Virgin Atlantic Airways and joined Virgin Galactic in 2015.
He previously described the 2021 trip as “one of the greatest days of life”, saying it was “both staggering and mind-blowing”.
He said: “It’s with me for ever now.”
A statement from Virgin Galactic said: “This historic mission is Virgin Galactic’s first commercial space flight and represents a new era in Government funded commercial human tended research missions.”
The company previously suffered a disaster in 2014 when a spaceplane on a test flight broke apart midair, killing the co-pilot and seriously injuring the pilot.
American Dennis Tito was the first space tourist in 2001, paying Russia $20m (£16m) to fly to the International Space Station.
Three multimillionaire businessmen flew to the International Space Station last year on SpaceX’s first private charter flight to the orbiting lab - paying $55m (£42m) each.
Russia has been hosting visitors at the space station for decades and Jeff Bezos’s company, Blue Origin, completed its first human flight in 2021 with four private citizens on board.
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