Mags looks to the stars... and hopes to join them
Mags O’Sullivan, 48, from Tralee, Co Kerry, has set her sights on becoming the first Irish woman to fly in to space on the Lynx XCOR space vehicle.
But the qualified pilot will be sweating it out for a few months while she tries to gather enough votes to get through the first stage of a tough three-stage qualification process.
“I have great support from the people of Ireland and I will be leaving no stone unturned in my quest to fly to space,” she vowed last night.
Mags fulfilled a lifelong ambition in Oct 2011 when she travelled to the Sokol airbase in the historic Russian town of Nizhny and flew to the edge of space in an MiG 29 Fulcrum fighter jet.
“Seeing the blackness and infinity of space against the backdrop of the blueness of the atmosphere below was very humbling,” Mags said.
“My dream now is to go one step further and fly right in to space.”
Lynx is offering 22 people from around the world the chance to train as an astronaut at the Lynx Space Academy in Florida.
One lucky trainee will then be selected to travel on the XCOR Sub Orbital Spacecraft.
The two-seat, piloted space transport vehicle, which is being developed by XCOR Aerospace following the cancellation of the Nasa Shuttle programme, will take a 30-minute suborbital flight to 100km before landing.
It will ultimately be aimed at space tourists and at the commercial markets, with seats costing a cool $95,000 per flight.
There are three stages in the Lynx competition process and Mags needs public votes to get through stage one.
The top 200 votegetters in Ireland and Britain will qualify for stage two, undergoing a series of tests in London.
Four will then be selected to travel to Florida in December for astronaut training.
*You can vote for Mags on http://exa.mn/g1
