Space Tourism: Mother-daughter duo fly into space on Virgin Galactic space plane

Colombo (News 1st) - Space tourism took a giant leap forward when the Virgin Galactic space plane 'Spaceship 2' on Thursday carried the first mother-daughter duo into space, together with an 80-year-old British Olympian.

The space plane reached an altitude of 80 km (53 miles) during which the passengers experienced zero gravity. Space is considered to begin at an altitude of 50 miles above sea level.

Keisha Schahaff and her daughter Ana Mayers, and 1972 Olympic canoeist Jon Goodwin, blasted off from an airfield in New Mexico and landed back after witnessing the curvature of the Earth and the blackness of space. 

Keisha Schahaff, from Antigua in the West Indies, won two free tickets in a lottery she entered at an airport while on her way to visit her daughter Ana Mayers who is a university student in Aberdeen, Scotland.

Goodwin, who has Parkinson's Disease, paid $250,000 for his ticket back in 2005. He is one of about 800 people who have made bookings on Virgin Galactic's flights.

Each flight carries six people, including three pilots. The mother ship that carries it aloft and detaches at 40,000 feet has one pilot. After detaching, the space plane fires a rocket engine that carries it into space at nearly three times the speed of sound. It then glides down to land.

Virgin Galactic, founded in 2004, is the space tourism arm of the Virgin Group, founded by British billionaire Sir Richard Branson.