Virgin Galactic Launches First Space Tourism Flight with Olympian, Mother-Daughter Duo

The Galactic 02 mission carried the first Caribbean women, the first Olympian, and the second-youngest person ever to reach space.

Jack Daleo

Thursday, August 10, 2023 at 01:35 PM ET

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Italian researcher Colonel Walter Villadei peers out the window on Virgin Galactic’s Galactic 01 mission. [Courtesy: Virgin Galactic]

Key Takeaways:

Virgin Galactic successfully completed Galactic 02, its first space tourism flight for paying customers, transporting three private astronauts to the edge of space.
The flight featured several notable "firsts," including the first Olympian in space (Jon Goodwin), the first mother-daughter duo, and the first Caribbean women to reach space (Keisha Schahaff and Anastasia Mayers).
This mission gives Virgin Galactic significant momentum in the commercial space tourism industry, with plans for monthly flights and new spacecraft, while also highlighting the need for evolving safety regulations for human spaceflight.

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The first Olympian. The first mother-daughter duo. The first Caribbean women. The second person with Parkinson’s disease.

These are a few of the superlatives for the crew aboard Galactic 02, the first space tourism flight for billionaire business mogul Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic. The mission, the company’s seventh spaceflight overall and its fourth with humans on board, launched Thursday morning and carried three paying customers and a crew more than 50 miles to the edge of the cosmos.