Today Virgin Galactic completed its fifth revenue generating commercial flight and its sixth flight of the year

continuing the once a month launch Cadet.

Galactic 5 carried two research scientists and one other private passenger plus company crew to the edge of space for several minutes of weightlessness.

It was a research flight meaning the VSS Unity spaceship was converted into a suborbital space lab for research,

and the company could command higher ticket prices than those paid by so-called private astronauts.

Kelly Girardi flew with three payloads aboard Galactic 5, including two evaluating health care

technology in microgravity. Fresh off the flight, Girardi joins me here. She is a payload specialist and a bioastronautics researcher for the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences,

a missions operations lead for Palantir Technologies, an author, and a social media

influencer focused on STEM education.

I'm on a little space sabbatical,

which is a first for our company

with an epic out of office message today.

I'm Morgan Brennan and this is Manifest Space.

Kelly Girardi thank you so much for joining me. It's so great to speak with you. What a major

milestone today. You just returned from space. How is your trip? Thank you so much.

It exceeded all of my wildest expectations and imagination.

How?

In a number of different ways. So, you know, first I was there as a researcher which is, you know,

a really interesting and novel new era of access to space on suborbital space

flight and I had on my wrist checklist that my team made me put down take a moment to look at

the Earth you know I was so task focused and task me put down, take a moment to look at the earth.

You know, I was so task focused and task oriented

...