A Pakistani woman took part in a Virgin Galactic space mission, becoming the first person from Pakistan to go into space, while the mission was the space tourism company’s fifth successful flight in five months.
Virgin Galactic noted that Namira Saleem was “the first Pakistani to go into space”.
Namira – who has previously traveled to the South and North Poles and parachuted onto Mount Everest – was one of the first customers to buy a ticket from Virgin Galactic, founded by British billionaire Richard Branson.
“I really like my title of being the first Pakistani astronaut,” he told Agence France-Presse in 2012. “When I was a kid, I wanted to go to space.”
Among the participants of the expedition were American Ron Rossano and Briton Trevor Beattie.
Virgin Galactic doesn’t use a classic rocket that launches from the ground, as rockets usually do, from a giant carrier plane that takes off from the Spaceport America base in the desert of the US state of New Mexico. After reaching an altitude of about 13 kilometers, the aircraft launches a vehicle that resembles a missile plane similar to large private jets. The rocket plane then ignites its engine and the rocket reaches a height of 86 kilometers upwards, while its passengers remain unbalanced for a few minutes.
An hour after takeoff the vehicle descends again before landing.
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