Discovery landing spurs Irishman towards space

THE successful return home of the space shuttle Discovery yesterday has increased the ambition of Limerick man Cyril Bennis to be the first Irishman to fly into space.

Cyril, 56, who lives in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he served a term as the town’s mayor, has just returned from the US where he went on a flight into the margins of space where he experienced zero gravity.

Cyril said: “I did that to see how my body would cope with weightlessness. There were seven passengers on the Boeing 727/200. We went up to 32,000 feet where we experienced zero gravity and we were floating around the cabin of the plane. We were up for about two hours.”