Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic spaceflight will today fly the first ever paying customers to the edge of space.
Taking off from New Mexico, Galactic 02 will take three passengers – an 80-year-old former Olympian with Parkinson’s disease and a mother and daughter duo who won their tickets in a sweepstake – 50 miles (80km) above Earth.
On board the VSS Unity, which boasts more windows than any other spacecraft in history to “optimise zero-G viewing”, they will experience around five minutes of weightlessness before returning to their loved ones staying at Galactic’s all-inclusive luxury desert accommodation.
For octogenarian Jon Goodwin, from Newcastle, it will have been an 18-year wait since he signed up – at a total cost of ($450,000) £356,000.
He, Keisha Schahaff, 46, and her 18-year-old daughter Anastatia Mayers, will join the likes of Branson and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in the group of just 700 people who have ever left the Earth’s atmosphere.
But after the death of five men on a submersible destined for the wreckage of the Titanic weeks before, many have questioned why we’re drawn to such extreme environments – and how extreme wealth impacts the decision to take the risk.
The overview effect, flow state and self-esteem
The so-called ‘overview effect‘ – a cognitive shift reported by astronauts when they go into space – has been well documented since the days of the final frontier.
Branson, who eventually hopes to operate 600 tourist spaceflights a year, includes it in Galactic’s marketing, defining it as a “shift in awareness and perspective brought about by viewing the Earth from space”.
Flow state – being completely focused on a single thing – is another key experience people crave from extreme environments, says Professor Emma Barrett, an expert in the psychology of performance and wellbeing in extreme environments…
