While astronauts have said nothing can really prepare you for your first sub-orbital experience, you can expect it to be nothing short of profound. After completing your training, you’ll feel completely confident going into your take-off day. Once you’re on board with the crew and other space passengers, the craft will still be attached to the mother ship, a specially designed jet carrier aircraft. As you make your way from the spaceport to 50,000 feet, you feel your adrenaline rush. Ten, nine, eight… During the countdown to release, you find yourself immersed in silence just before a gripping surge of power. With the acceleration, you’re pressed against the back of your seat, and hear the howl of the rocket motor as you watch the read-out. In a matter of just a few exhilarating moments, you’re traveling over three times the speed of sound.
As you race through the edges of the atmosphere, you notice that the cobalt sky turns to mauve, then to indigo, and finally to black. You’re about to see the Earth from an astronaut’s vantage point. In fact, you are an astronaut, a true space sailor. As you endeavor to take it all in, you realize that this is really happening, and your senses are on full alert.
The rocket motor switches off, and it’s quiet – totally and completely quiet. You’re amazed at the striking contrast between this utter silence, and the noise of the rocket from just moments earlier. Then, finally, you’re weightless. You’re out of your seat experiencing unparalleled freedom, realizing this is better than you even dreamed it would be. After a few graceful mid-space somersaults, you look through the large windows, and what you see will change your life forever. Despite the pictures you’ve seen in books and magazines, you shudder at your stunning first-hand perspective. It’s so much more beautiful, so much more vivid than you’d imagined, and you experience waves of emotions you will later still struggle to adequately describe. Right in front of you, as if you could touch it, you see a blue map curving into the black distance, and it has no boundaries. You note the unbelievably thin atmospheric ribbon, and you’re struck with the realization that you’re looking at everything it means to be human. And it is home.
Equally spellbound, your fellow passengers are lost in their own thoughts as they too begin to process memories only a privileged few have ever had. The pilots ask you to return to your seats which are now reclined, seemingly waiting for you. You begin to feel the weight of your body once again, and feel the force of the deceleration. At this point, you’re lying down, and know just what’s happening. While the view outside the window still looks like space, you can hear and feel the powerful drag of the feathered spacecraft wings against the increasing thickness of the atmosphere. The pressure you feel quickly eases, and, still utterly awe struck, you enjoy the graceful glide home wrapped in a sense of peace and accomplishment you’ve never before experienced.
Back on Earth, you celebrate with friends, family, and fellow astronauts, and participate in your wings ceremony. When you’re finally alone, you replay the day’s experience in your mind, and you realize that, now that you’ve been witness to the oneness of humanity, you’ll never quite be the same again. And you’re richer because of it.