A fuss and girl from Antigua and Barbuda inwards the Caribbean Sea were flying mellow Tuesday. That’s after winning two tickets on plank a future Virgin Galactic commercial-grade space travel inward an Omaze sweepstake.
Keisha Schahaff, a health and push coach, said she entered the sweepstake because she dreamed of taking her astrophysicist daughter into orbit.
“My daughter is studying STEM and wants to work at NASA, and I desire to divvy up this go through with her because it would be an incredible daydream come true up for both of us, for our intact family,” Schahaff told People.
The sweepstakes was unionised by Virgin Galactic and entered past 164,338 hopeful blank space cadets from around the world. It raised $1.7 1000000 for non-profit Space for Humanity. As its epithet suggests, the organisation is dedicated to “expanding access code to blank space for all of humanity.”
Omaze is a Los Angeles-based, for-profit digital fundraising political program that partners with charities for eye-catching fundraising events.
Flying the Flag
The Schahaffs are likely to follow the firstly born-and-bred Caribbean Islanders in infinite when they eventually have liftoff.
It’s in time to follow set exactly when that testament be, although Virgin Galactic has said they testament be among the first of all inward line.
The troupe presold 600 tickets between 2005 and 2014, and 100 more since tickets were relisted earlier this yr at $450,000 each. Virgin hopes to begin the first commercial message launches next year.
To follow the firstly astronaut right on at present from the Caribbean Sea Islands is such an honor,” said Schahaff. “I need to wreak the flag of Antigua and Barbuda to space with me. Right now, I’m trying to unrecorded inwards the moment, read it all inward and i trust my girl and i – as futurity astronauts – can buoy live an inspiration for women and girls everywhere.”
Billionaire Space Race
Schahaff was doorstepped with news of her appreciate by Virgin founding father Richard Branson in-person, who conveniently owns his have private island 200 miles NW of Antigua and Barbuda.
Branson made history when he hopped on board the company’s Unity 22 launch to become the world-class civilian on a in camera funded infinite mission.
The flight of stairs was deliberately rescheduled so he could pound rival billionaire Jeff Bezos to that lay claim by ennead days, although Bezos went 16 miles higher to a higher place the earth’s surface. The Amazon River father scored yet more points support past taking 90-year-old William Shatner upward 3 months later.
A month before Shatner’s trip, Elon Musk’s SpaceX raised the stakes in the billionaire space-race. They did so past launching a four-person, all-civilian crew into orbit, significantly higher than Branson’s and Bezos’ suborbital flights.