AIRBORNE!

Barbara Burtscher jumps from an altitude of 10 km!
 
A new era has begun: in this decade private spaceflight will open the window to the universe. Swiss citizen Barbara Burtscher is among the first: she is now starting with SPACE TRAVELLERS to train for her way to space.

A spaceflight needs special preparation, including being able to estimate the overall risks of a space mission, and to learn how to behave in emergency situations. Your way into space, no matter if you take a private spaceplane or a state-run transport facility, will be anything but a normal day-to-day routine!

Barbara's first training took place in Memphis, Tennessee. There she got to meet a challenge that usually awaits only qualified paratroopers: she performed a HALO jump!

She jumped from the airplane on April 25th, 2010 from an altitude of 10 kilometers or 30,000ft – normal parachute jumps are performed from up to 3,000 meters. Surroundings up there are absolutely life-hostile – even Mount Everest has only 8.884 meters. You need special equipment and lots of courage to jump from such an altitude and land safely on earth.

HALO means 'High Altitude - Low Opening': Barbara performed this special jump technique in tandem with a qualified Jump Master. The free fall phase was last more than two minutes (2:06 min), probably the longest minutes of her life. Not until being close to earth the parachute opened. Barbara was the first Swiss citizen and the 3rd woman to venture such a jump since the program started. 

Other training units with SPACE TRAVELLERS will follow, as in summer the Suborbital PreQualification Training Starfighter F-104, held at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, and next year the International Space Station Crew Selection Training in Star City, Russia.

If you want to know more about these adventures, just send a mail to office[at]space-travellers.com or call SPACE TRAVELLERS' Mission Director at +49 2628 987 420. We are looking forward to hearing from you!

Her Internet blog you can find here (in german language): http://barbaraburtscher.com/blog/index.php