February 25, 2025 12:20pm EST
Of course, I didn’t sleep a wink. I was ready before I had to be. Cameras were scanning waiting for me to emerge from the Airstream. The countdown clock at the training center was counting down for my crew – A Perfect 10. It was UNREAL!
Faster than a speeding bullet, I pierced through the atmosphere to behold an extraordinary sight. Then, balancing on the quiet edge of infinity I heard a voice so strong and full of gravity that I could not ignore it. Mother Earth was talking to me, calling me back, but like a delinquent teenager trying to test the boundaries, I didn’t want to go home.
Unavoidably, I plummeted like a brick back to the ground. The steady build of G-forces stuck me to my chair. I reached 2,401mph, a little over Mach 3.1, and experienced 5.5 G’s sustained for a few seconds. That means I was falling a little over a mile every two seconds. 1..2..
I stepped out of the capsule onto the soft desert sand. Half my mind was still in space, I looked around and could not reconcile the desert vista to the space image my brain was overlaying upon it. Yet with cameras in my face, I was forced to process what had just happened to me quickly.
The ultimate adrenaline rush for a crew of ultimate adrenaline junkies.