Virgin Galactic to send researcher, a TikTok star, to space
WASHINGTON: Space tourism company Virgin Galactic announced Thursday it will send researcher Kellie Gerardi, a well-known figure on TikTok, into space to conduct experiments for several minutes while weightless.
The move presents an ideal opportunity for the company to flaunt its ambitions not only to send wealthy tourists on pleasure rides costing $200,000 or more, but also to advance science.
The 32-year-old bioastronautics researcher, who is affiliated with the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences (IIAS), said she always believed the space tourism industry’s success could also “help open up opportunities for researchers like myself.” The first experiment conducted by Gerardi, who has more than 400,000 TikTok followers and some 130,000 on Instagram, will involve “astro skin,” in which sensors are placed under her flight suit to collect biometric data. Virgin Galactic, founded by British billionaire Richard Branson, hopes to begin regular commercial suborbital flights in early 2022, with eventual plans for 400 trips a year.
Asked whether just a few minutes in space was sufficient, Gerardi said “uninterrupted consecutive minutes of time in space in microgravity to do my research” was “really the dream.”
Until now she has only been able to board parabolic flights which reproduce zero gravity conditions for a few seconds, achieved in conventional planes that tilt at strong angles towards the sky and the ground.