Namira Saleem to go on tour to space

A resident of Dubai of Pakistani descent, Namira Saleem, will travel to space as part of Virgin Galactic’s tourist flights.

Namira Saleem was one of the first people to buy a US$200,000 ticket to space in 2006. Currently, the ticket is worth at least US$450,000.

The 52-year-old adventurer had waited 17 years for an opportunity to fly on a Virgin Galactic spaceship on the most thrilling voyage of her life. Namira Saleem became the first resident of Pakistan and the UAE to buy a ticket for a suborbital flight with Sir Richard Branson, earning her the title of Founding Astronaut. The exact date of the flight is still being kept under wraps and the travel time will be 70-90 minutes.

As a reminder, Virgin Galactic’s first successful commercial flight took place on Thursday 29 June 2023. The VSS Unity spaceplane, with three Italian passengers on board, reached the boundaries of space at the extreme altitude of 85 km. The entire flight lasted about 1.5 hours, the crew spent a few minutes in zero gravity, after which they returned safely to Earth.

According to representatives of the company Virgin Galactic, the next tourist flight will take place in August, and then the flights will take place every month.

There are other corporations that already carry out space tourism flights. For example, Blue Origin, a private company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has sent 32 tourists on suborbital flights since 2021, and SpaceX Corporation, founded by Ilon Musk, has successfully launched private space missions on a regular basis.

According to Ms Salim, space tourism is now a reality available to almost any ordinary person on a commercial basis.

Source: The National

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