Western Daily Press (Saturday)
‘Growing up in Somerset made me who I am’
TWO of the key figures in Virgin Galactic’s first fully-crewed spaceflight went to the same West secondary school.
After spending years together in the same group of friends at Clevedon School in North Somerset, Aleanna Crane and Colin Bennett now find themselves pioneering Virgin Galactic’s mission to launch commercial space flights in the coming year.
After being born in Scotland and moving around the country as a child, Colin finally settled down in Clevedon aged 10.
“Clevedon is still really where I call home, because I grew up during my teenage years there and I also have a lot of friends and family still in the area,” he said.
Colin, 36, recalls his days playing rugby and cricket on the school fields under Clevedon School stalwart Mr Owen as some of the memories that have stuck with him for years.
He later attended the University of Liverpool where he studied a fouryear aerospace engineering course.
During his third year, he took a year out to study at the University of Illinois, a choice that would change his life in two ways.
“It made me interested in living and working in America at some point,” he said.
“It was also the first time I met my wife. It took me a while after that to convince her to move to London with me.”
Having always been fascinated by air travel, Colin said he always had ambitions to one day travel into space but thought of it as more of a “fantasy” as opposed to a legitimate aim.
“It is never anything I thought could or would happen to me. Throughout my career I have always been interested in aeroplanes and that’s how I ended up on this path.”
Although Colin did indicate that he believes becoming an astronaut is something that will happen much more often to people as we enter a new era of commercialising space travel. It just so happens that he was one of the first people lucky enough to experience it.
Having been at Virgin Galactic for six years now, Colin said he always had an inkling he could be in with a chance to travel into space.
“My background of flying on different aircraft types in all sorts of flight environments plus my day-today role in mission control I guess it meant it had been a possibility for the last few years.”
And his old schoolmate Aleanna, who by coincidence is vice-president of communications at Virgin Galactic, is spearheading the promotion of the mission.
Describing his day-to-day job, Colin explained: “I am a flight test engineer. Most of my job involves me being in or around mission control. I am one of the flight directors which means my role is to keep all the engineers in the room synchronised and make sure we are providing the pilots with all the information they need. It’s a dream job and I love it but as you can imagine I was more than happy to trade that role for a seat on Spaceship Unity.”
The process of selecting the crew ready to fly alongside Richard Branson was a careful one, with no applications taken but instead an attentive and prudent selection process being carried out.
VSS Unity is a state-of-the-art aircraft which is designed to withstand re-entry to earth which Colin labelled as “often one of the hardest parts of space travel”.
He described the aircraft’s ability to fold and become ‘shuttlecock-like’ to prevent it from becoming too hot or too stressed upon re-entry.
To put things into perspective, the average cruising altitude of a passenger jet is around 40,000 feet. Looking out the window at that height is often enough to put butterflies in the stomach of some.
VSS Unity surpassed the 50-mile mark which translates to around 280,000 feet.
There was one moment during the flight that struck a kind of realisation for Colin.
“I knew the acceleration of the motor would be pretty incredible, which it really was. When you get up towards space and the motor turns off, it’s a really great moment. The noise of the motor fades away in an almost vacuumlike sound and you are just left with the silence of space.
“At that point you start floating around and you can see the serenity of space as well as hearing your team mates and when those things come together which make it pretty magical.”
“Exhilarating but comfortable and relaxing” is how Colin described his trip. He emphasised the fact that there is no stress on the body.
“There is nothing you can do to prepare yourself to see the Earth with your own eyes. The cameras do not do it justice. The vivid colours contrasting with the black of space.”
The journey from take-off to landing takes around 75 to 90 minutes. The prospect of going to space and back in a length of time shorter than a football match is now possible.
As Virgin Galactic, Aleanna and Colin prepare to offer the world commercial space flights in the coming years, Colin has said his years growing up in Somerset will never leave him and have built who he is today.
“I feel very fortunate for the education I got, starting at Clevedon School,” he said.
“The thing for me is it’s not just about what I have learnt and what I have studied but about character and how you treat people. To stay confident but humble and that to me seems to have served me best in life. It has got me to the positions I am in now and ultimately be an astronaut.”