The first thing Jon Goodwin did after stepping foot back on Earth was run to hug his wife, Pauline, who stood waiting several feet away.
Goodwin — an 80-year-old lifelong adventurer and competitor in the 1972 Munich Olympic games — was one of four crewmembers on board Virgin Galactic's spaceship, VSS Unity, as it rocketed into zero gravity nearly 55 miles above southern New Mexico Thursday morning. He was an early purchaser of a $250,000 ticket to space on board a Virgin ship, several years before he contracted Parkinson's disease — a neurological disorder that causes uncontrollable movements.
"When I signed up in September 2005, I didn't have Parkinson's," Goodwin said during a press conference following Thursday's flight. "When I, nine years ago, contracted the disease, I thought, 'that's the end of me going into space'."
Over that period between contracting Parkinson's and flying to space, Goodwin said Virgin Galactic completed "various health checks" to ensure he was able to fly safely. On Thursday, he became the second person with the disease to reach space.
"I think they need an enormous amount of credibility for that," Goodwin said during the press conference. "I'm hoping that I instill in other people around the world, as well as people with Parkinson's, that it doesn't stop you from doing things that are out of the normal if you've got some illness that's inflicted you. So I just hope the good comes out of that as far as other Parkinson's people suffering."
Keisha Schahaff and Anastasia Mayers — a mother and daughter from the Caribbean country Antigua and Barbuda — joined Goodwin as private passengers on board VSS Unity Thursday. Beth Moses, Virgin Galactic's lead astronaut instructor, also sat in Unity's cabin alongside the three first-time astronauts.
C.J. Sturckow and Kelly Latimer co-piloted VSS Unity on its trip into space on the mission, dubbed "Galactic 02," which marked Latimer's first spaceflight. Schahaff, Mayers, Moses and Latimer together constituted the most women to fly into space on a single mission, according to Virgin Galactic.
Mayers, an 18-year-old student at Aberdeen University, became the youngest person to fly into space, according to the company. And, alongside her mother, Schahaff, the two became the first mother-daughter duo to reach space, per Virgin Galactic.
"Ana [Mayers] is not a kid that would listen to me like that. She has to see what I'm doing and I have to explain everything very nicely to her. And she has to give me her opinion, as well," Schahaff said during the press conference. "So my advice to her is I am living by example and being adventurous within myself, being true to myself, stretching myself and all the things I would want for her I'm doing that for myself. I'm just being the example."
The pair won their seats for Thursday's flight in a drawing that raised money for the nonprofit Space for Humanity, per a July 17 news release from Virgin Galactic.
"Galactic 02" took off from New Mexico's Spaceport America at 8:30 a.m. Thursday and landed back at the Spaceport's 12,000-foot-long runway at 9:32 a.m. VSS Unity hit a peak altitude of nearly 55 miles and a top speed of Mach 3, or three times the speed of sound, during the 92-minute flight. The four-person crew spent about three minutes in zero gravity space, peering out of the spaceship cabin's windows over the Earth.
"If anyone was wondering, Earth is round," Schahaff said to onlookers gathered outside the "Gateway to Space" building after stepping out of Unity minutes after landing.
"You stole my line!" Mayers responded moments after.
Click through the gallery at the top of the page to see photos from New Mexico's Spaceport America before, during and after the private astronaut mission.
Virgin Galactic's flight put a spotlight on New Mexico. Members of the national and international media and visitors from Great Britain and Antigua and Barbuda traveled to Spaceport America for the mission, as well as additional Virgin Galactic staff from the company's headquarters in Mojave, California — not to mention the near 300 people Virgin employs in the Land of Enchantment.
"I've been really impressed with New Mexico," Goodwin, who hails from Great Britain, said during a noontime Thursday press conference following the flight. "I hadn't been before until last month. … It's an unreal world compared to home. New Mexico has opened my eyes to what a beautiful country you have."
The "Gateway to Space" building is leased to Virgin Galactic over a 20-year term in a deal the company and the New Mexico Spaceport Authority — the state body that oversees Spaceport America — signed in 2008. Getting the building and the Spaceport Operations Center ready for operations cost upwards of $200 million.
Virgin Galactic, the Spaceport's anchor tenant, expects to fly out of New Mexico five more times before the end of the year, with the next of those missions planned for September. The company hopes that its next generation of spaceships, called the Delta-class, can enable it to fly at a cadence of over one flight per month, its CEO Michael Colglazier has said; Virgin is getting ready to assemble those ships at a facility in Mesa, Arizona.
Scott McLaughlin, executive director of Spaceport America, said in a statement Friday:
Virgin Galactic and Spaceport America are headed to routine flights to space. That consistent schedule of flights has been our collective goal since 2006. New Mexico has patiently waited for these moments, so this is an exciting time — and an exciting future — for the region.
The Spaceport is located about 25 miles southeast of Truth or Consequences and has long been a calling card for New Mexico's aerospace industry since then-Gov. Bill Richardson signed the lease agreement with Virgin Galactic in late 2008. Thursday's flight was the third time Virgin has flown people into space over the past four months, following a preperation mission on May 25 and a research mission on June 29.
