Virgin Galactic has announced it’s crew for the first crewed flight. Scheduled for July 11, here are the crew:
The flight’s four mission specialists will be:
Beth Moses, Chief Astronaut Instructor at Virgin Galactic. Moses will serve as cabin lead and test director in space, overseeing the safe and efficient execution of the test flight objectives.
Colin Bennett, Lead Operations Engineer at Virgin Galactic. Bennett will evaluate cabin equipment, procedures, and experience during both the boost phase and in the weightless environment.
Sirisha Bandla, Vice President of Government Affairs and Research Operations at Virgin Galactic. Bandla will be evaluating the human-tended research experience, using an experiment from the University of Florida that requires several handheld fixation tubes that will be activated at various points in the flight profile.
And the one and only Richard Branson, who will evaluate the private astronaut experience and will undergo the same training, preparation and flight as Virgin Galactic’s future astronauts. The Company will use his observations from his flight training and spaceflight experience to enhance the journey for all future astronaut customers.
The pilots for this mission are Dave Mackay and Michael Masucci flying VSS Unity (VSS stands for Virgin SpaceShip), and CJ Sturckow and Kelly Latimer flying VMS Eve (the carrier aircraft, with VMS standing for Virgin MotherShip).
I wanna try Virgin Galactic when I grow up, and I also wanna try Blue Origin, and then I will recommend which one is better, based on several categories.
Good luck to the team at Virgin Galactic, they have worked and tested it for a long time, and now it’s ready. The checkered flag is clearly in sight, and it looks like Virgin Galactic is gonna take it! Looks like you’ve got a lot of catching up to do, Jeff! Blue Origin may not take the checkered flag!
Meanwhile, TerTech is joining in to create space tourism for the better….
(Source: https://www.virgingalactic.com/articles/virgin-galactic-announces-first-fully-crewed-spaceflight/)