Posted on August 10, 2023.
Club member, Hillclimb Champion, Olympian, and now spaceman. Jon Goodwin has taken to the stars aboard VSS Unity as part of the Galactic 02 mission, the second tourist flight to space by Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.
Mr Goodwin, from Newcastle-under-Lyme, flew the flag for Great Britain as a canoeist at the 1972 Munich Games.
Jon Goodwin purchased his ticket in 2005 but had feared a Parkinson’s diagnosis would mean he could not take part, however the Olympian has said he wants to defy his condition and is set to become the second man with Parkinson’s in space;
“Three years ago I climbed Kilimanjaro and cycled down, just to prove that [Parkinson’s] wasn’t going to get me and [the space flight] is the same thing”.
On signing up for the mission in 2005, he told BBC Breakfast: “I just saw it… When it came up I was the fourth person to pick up the phone and sign up; there’s now 700 following behind me.
“It was just to have the opportunity to do something very few other people have done – more people have climbed Everest than have gone into space.
“So, I do hesitate on certain things, inasmuch as there’s no toilet on this rocket ship, I have to go back to wearing nappies which I can’t remember the last time I had a nappy on.”
Asked how he will top going into space and back, he joked: “It might be that I need to go to the Moon or something.”
Jon Goodwin was be joined by Mother & Daughter duo Keisha Schahaff and Anastatia Mayers. Keisha won the pair of tickets through a raffle.
