Virgin Galactic’s first test passenger received her commercial astronaut wings from the US aviation regulator on Tuesday after flying on the company’s rocket plane to evaluate the customer experience in February. Virgin Galactic’s chief astronaut instructor, Beth Moses, who is a former NASA engineer, became the first woman to fly to space on a commercial vehicle when she joined pilots David Mackay and Mike Masucci on SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity.
The wings were presented to the three-person crew at the 35th Space Symposium in Colorado by the Federal Aviation Administration’s associate administrator for commercial space, Wayne Monteith. “Commercial human space flight is now a reality,” he said.
