As a tourist in space: ‘And suddenly I was floating’

“I’m doing well, I’m excited of course, but I think I’m going to have an absolutely wonderful experience with this nice weather. Of course I’m a bit nervous, but we are so well prepared that I think it can only go well. Bye”. With these moving words, the 61-year-old Waldviertler said goodbye to his old friends Claudia and Peter Ringhofer, who had traveled with him from Austria to leave for endless expanses. Then the cockpit door closed.

Waited 17 years for the flight
As reported, the former transporter in his small hometown of Sallingberg (Lower Austria) had been looking forward to this space flight for almost exactly 17 years – a small eternity on Earth.

On Saturday at exactly 6:30 PM local time, he took off from Space Airport in El Paso, USA, for what was probably the greatest adventure of his life. An aircraft carrier ‘catapulted’ the spacecraft ‘Virgin Galactic 6’ and the space tourists to an altitude of 15 kilometers. Then the spaceship isolated itself – as if by magic, but still technically perfectly controlled – from the aircraft carrier, lost altitude for a moment – as planned – and shot – also for an unforgettable second for eternity – with the rocket engine at a speed of 3500 (! ) km/h towards the universe. From that moment on, there was nothing but breathtaking amazement, pure emotions and tears of joy for Haider.

“Strong forces were acting on my body”
“It was pure madness. What struck me most was this view of our Earth – these colors, this blue ring – I can’t describe it. “You can’t take a picture of it,” says our man in the room, describing his impressions that will probably be burned into his heart forever.

But the pensioner’s body was also exposed to storms and stress. “All the g-forces from this acceleration, from the release, were enormous. The forces from the front, the forces from above! My body was extremely challenged to counteract this,” Haider confided to reporter Viktoria Raz after landing.

Their Servus TV camera team was the only television broadcaster – both from Austria and worldwide – to be on site and see everything up close. Haider’s impression of the release after the pilot’s command: ‘Suddenly you’re floating and you have to stop, and then you forget everything around you because this feeling is so overwhelming when you become weightless. That’s downright impressive.” The universe will continue to have an effect on him forever…

Next Monday from 6:05 PM you can experience the whole adventure on “Servus am Abend” on ServusTV. Franz Haider will also be a guest in the afternoon magazine “Servus at 2 p.m.” on ServusTV on Tuesday from 2 p.m.