June 17 – Where is the farthest you have ever traveled? Through the whole country? Across international seas?
What about space?
Las Cruces resident Jamila Gilbert, Virgin Galactic’s internal communications lead, became an astronaut in August 2023 when she flew on Virgin Galactic’s Unity spaceship.
It’s a day she will never forget.
With turquoise in her pockets, Gilbert floated weightlessly in a rocket cabin as she looked at “the most brilliant crystalline entity” she has ever seen. One of the first things she did when she got home was lock herself in her art studio with the darkest paint on earth to illustrate what she had seen in space.
Here’s a preview of the conversation Gilbert had with the Journal about her experiences, which has been edited for length and clarity. Tech Outlook podcasts appear Monday afternoon on YouTube, Spotify, iTunes and SoundCloud.
How was the experience?
“There are so many emotions involved in the actual flight.
But before you do that, you’re actually going to train for three days at Spaceport America here in southern New Mexico. …You have a full medical team, a full training team of course, your commander, your pilot, and you spend the entire week learning what to prepare for as you begin your spaceflight. …
You’re doing a lot of muscle memory. So you want to make sure you have that repeatability and that comfort when getting in and out (in microgravity). … And then of course on the day of the space flight you wake up in the morning and you say to yourself: you’re going to space that day, which is not a very normal thought. …
Climbing aboard a spaceship, lowering the hatch, getting trapped, feeling it pressurized and knowing you’re going into space is an exceptional, exceptional moment.
So that’s where you start to climb. Our spaceship climbs to about 45,000 feet – that’s the release high point… and you get into your L14, L12, L2 checks. And that just means you have 14 minutes to launch, 12 minutes to launch, and two minutes to launch. And in those two minutes a calm came over me. But your heart rate is up because you realize that every time they come back, they’re going to count you out (and then let go, let go, let go).
And in that moment you just feel your body floating up as the mothership pulls away from the spaceship and the spaceship begins to fall. You feel the rocket engine kicking in… It’s a constant initial pressure as you start to penetrate the air a little, shoot up and leave the atmosphere. So that’s a pretty exceptional moment.”
You’re an artist, right? Did that influence the way you saw things towards Planet Earth?
“For me, as a visual artist, the feeling was visual. I felt like my vision had improved. The clarity was tremendous. You look down and see the most brilliant crystalline entity you have ever looked at. And that is also.” so huge. It is unbelievable.
You look out and you see our brilliant home planet just in front of you and… an endless, endless depth and it goes on and on… It gives you a new appreciation for Planet Earth.”
What did you put in your pockets?
“So I took some little watercolors that I painted myself… I took some little drawings that my nieces and nephews had made for me. And it’s actually kind of funny: one of my nieces, Ava, painted this photo of me going home to the moon, and so while I was going into space that day, I disappointed a five year old, since that wasn’t actually the destination.
I brought these earrings,” she said, referring to the turquoise bands she wore in her ears. “So I brought a lot of turquoise from New Mexico….
I also brought my wedding ring.”
Although you work at Virgin Galactic, you have no background in space travel. So how did you get chosen to go on this flight?
“My background is in art. I studied languages and linguistics. I also have a degree in museum conservation. In fact, New Mexico State University is one of the few schools in the country that has a museum conservation program. …
But no, my background is not in engineering or physics or anything like that. But I was selected because I had to provide feedback on the customer experiences as if I had bought a ticket and then went to the room. And my background is very similar to many of our customers, our future astronauts, and they really wanted to send someone different than before.
Previously, everyone who had flown into space aboard Virgin Galactic had been a pilot, an engineer or Richard Branson. So they wanted to send someone who could come back and talk about the experience in a different way.”
Fewer than 100 women and even fewer Latina or Hispanic people have gone to space. How does it feel to be part of that group?
“It’s just a huge honor because I bring with me so many different groups that historically haven’t had a big base in space.
So Latinas, women, I think there’s actually only a handful of people from the state of New Mexico that have gone to space.
And so I feel like I can carry so many people with me because of that.
But you know, Virgin Galactic is one of only three companies in the world making commercial spaceflight a reality. And so it’s very exciting to be part of the group of 37 people who have ever flown aboard Unity, but also to represent the groups that I belong to.”
