• Space Tourism Virgin Galactic successfully completes its first commercial suborbital flight with which it begins its space tourism program

An Antigua and Barbuda woman and her daughter, as well as an 80-year-old man, will travel into space with Virgin Galactic on August 10.

This mission, dubbed Galactic 02, will be the second commercial flight of the American company founded by billionaire Richard Branson, but if test flights are included, it will be the seventh time the spacecraft travels to space.

Keisha Schahaff, 46, and her daughter Anastatia Mayers, 18, won the raffle after participating in a fundraiser organized by Virgin Galactic. The amount the mother donated was not disclosed, but donations started at $10.

It was Richard Branson himself who communicated the news to Keisha Schahaff by going to his house to deliver the astronaut suit. "As a child, I was always fascinated by space," Keisha Schahaff told AFP at the time. "This is a great opportunity to feel alive."

The third passenger, John Goodwin, 80, participated in the 1972 Olympics and will become the second person with Parkinson's disease to go into space, but not the oldest because the record was broken by William Shatner, at 90. Also aboard the ship will be Virgin Galactic employee Beth Moses and two pilots.

The flight takes about an hour and a half, but passengers only spend a few minutes in space. A plane takes off first from a runway in New Mexico and about 15 km high drops the ship, which looks like a large private jet. It then starts the engine and accelerates vertically to an altitude of more than 80 km, the limit of space according to the US military. Then he descends planning.

Fewer than 700 people have flown into space to date, according to Virgin Galactic, which has promised a spaceflight every month. About 800 customers have bought their tickets, initially for a price of between $200,000 and $250,000 per passenger that went up to $450,000.

Virgin Galactic competes with billionaire Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, which also offers short suborbital flights.

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