Who are the six crew members of “Galactic 01”, the first commercial flight into space

On Thursday, if all goes well, Virgin Galactic will launch The first commercial flight into space. he Galactic 01 It will travel more than 80 kilometers above Earth so that its crew members will be able to see the features of the planet like never before.

“If you’ve ever dreamed of exploring beyond. Welcome to the new space age,” the company promises.

The idea of ​​\u200b\u200bBritish magnate Richard Branson’s company is to make one trip a month. They’ve already tried everything. On June 29 (or 30, if there is a setback) it will be the turn of “Galactic 01”, which, contrary to what one might think, is It will not have a crew of tourists.

Traveling on Virgin Galactic ships will be a luxury. Those who want to do so will have to pay $450,000. In addition to the large amount, “Galactic 01” will be more special, as its six crew members will be specialists.

The goal of Virgin Galactic’s first mission is purely scientific. The flight lasts an hour and a half during which suborbital science experiments will be conducted to examine biomedical thermo-fluid dynamics and the development of sustainable and innovative materials in microgravity conditions, as well as gathering all kinds of additional information.

Who will fly?

The group of six that will go into space consists of members of the Italian Air Force, the Italian National Research Council and two pilots.

The commander, who is part of the team of pilots, will be the American Michael Musucci, former officer in the United States Air Force. as an experimental character Nicola BissellFormer Italian Air Force pilot.

Astronaut Walter Veladi You will travel with a biometric smart suit that will measure your physiological responses during the flight.

Carlucci pantsFor his part, he will present his body so that during the flight they measure his heart rate and brain function.

Angelo Landolfi It will assess cognitive functioning and how the body behaves in a microgravity environment.

Finally, as a representative of the company you will fly Colin Bennettwho will be on board to record and evaluate the experiment.

More about the experience

Keeping in mind what the experiment will consist of, it’s worth reviewing what – in general – represents the study topics the astronauts will consider on the mission.

On the one hand, it can be said that the Biomedical engineering It can be, according to its most accepted definition (Engineering biomedical.org), Application of engineering principles to the life sciences.

His work combines engineering design standards and analysis tools from mathematics, physics, and chemistry to solve problems in medicine, biology, biotechnology, pharmacy, etc.

to the other side, thermal fluid area It is a branch of science and engineering that includes four intersecting fields: Heat transfer, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and combustion.

Temperature and pressure laws, equations of state, and transport laws play important roles in thermofluid problems, as do phase transition and chemical reactions.