(From L to R) Virgin Galactic Chief Pilot Dave Mackay, Chief Astronaut Instructor Beth Moses, and ... [+]
On February 22, 2019, Beth Moses flew into space on a craft named VSS Unity. With her were two test pilots, Dave Mackay and Michael Masucci. The flight is important because on it Moses became the first civilian passenger to fly with Virgin Galactic. A few months later, she received her astronaut wings from the Federal Aviation Administration. The milestone flight has VG’s customers, many of whom have paid $250,000 for their tickets, excited that scheduled suborbital space operations will start soon from Spaceport America, in New Mexico. Company founder Sir Richard Branson says he will be on the first commercial flight.
At a recent annual gathering at The Explorers Club in New York called Space Stories, we had the chance to interview Moses on stage as part of the Club’s Exploring Legends series. While many things were discussed during the interview, the view from space and whether it is life changing seemed to most interest the audience. Following are edited excerpts about just that from a longer conversation with Moses, not only an astronaut but the chief astronaut instructor at Virgin Galactic.
Jim Clash: Describe the view from space as best as you can.
Beth Moses: Once you’ve gone through the atmosphere to the blackness of space, you can unstrap. I floated to the cockpit and looked out of those windows to see Earth from the highest point, the apogee, 295,007 feet for us. Apogee is magic. I don’t think anyone has appropriate words for it, but I will try my best. Space is deep, deep, deep, black. And the Earth, especially when completely still above it, you and the spacecraft, is very high-def, vibrant, clear, bright, curved and beautiful. It just takes your breath away. You all [the crew] take it in and get quiet together. That felt like an eternity. Time slows down when I look back on it. Forgive this reference, but you have a God’s eye view of the Earth. You are amazed and instantly connected to all of it. From the apogee, you can see 1,000 miles, halfway up the U.S. and halfway down into Mexico. Each of us noticed something different. Dave [Mackay] speaks about the really thin bright blue band around the Earth, the atmosphere. I didn’t actually notice the atmosphere. I noticed the terrain, the blue of the ocean, the brown and green of the land. And, since I flew on a day when there was snow on the mountains, they were sunlit, bright and glistening. I thought Earth was wearing her diamonds for us, it was that good, bright and beautiful. I will be forever able to stop time in my mind and see that. It soaks into your soul.
Clash: Is that view life-changing, as so many astronauts say?
Moses: Yeah, it is. I’ve been an aerospace engineer, worked in human spaceflight all of my life, college, NASA and now Virgin Galactic. I thought I knew what to expect. I was an extreme test expert, with hundreds of parabolic cargo tests, thousands of neutral buoyancy dives with hardware, dozens of human vacuum chamber tests. I was highly trained for my flight. I knew it down to the fraction of a second. And yet it blew my mind in a way I still haven’t processed. It was that amazing. The only reason I think my mind is not totally blown right now is because I was doing a job, and that’s where my focus was, getting the data. As I said, the image of Earth from space sticks in your soul. People asked me after I landed, “Are you transformed, did you feel the overview effect, what was it like?” I do feel like I’m changed. What am I going to do for the rest of my life? Something more than I had considered before. The “Blue Marble” [taken by Harrison Schmitt on Apollo 17 in 1972] is the most downloaded image on the planet. The fact that we all, as humans across the Earth, feel an affinity just for a photo is amazing. It says something about the human soul, the human spirit and exploring. I think the more people that can see it for themselves, the better off we’ll be. I would love to lock every world leader into SpaceShipTwo and have them look down on Earth, or send one of every type of profession up to see what transpires. I think I know, because I’ve been there, that this is important on a subtle level.
