Ukrainian Lina Borozdina to pioneer space travel with Virgin Galactic
Photo: Ukrainian Lina Borozdina will be the first space tourist (Collage by RBC-Ukraine)
Ukrainian-born Lina Borozdina, together with Virgin Galactic, will embark on a suborbital flight aboard the Unity spacecraft. Three more astronauts from Austria, Texas, and California (USA) are joining her on the flight.
The material is based on sources such as Lina Borozdina's Facebook page, Instagram page, AIN, and Vise.
What is known about this space flight
On January 26th, the sixth commercial space flight of Virgin Galactic is scheduled. Among the crew members, Lina Borozdina is listed as "Astronaut 023 - Private Astronaut from Ukraine and Las Vegas, United States." Three more individuals, two from the USA and one from Austria will accompany her.
Lina has been anticipating this moment for nearly 18 years. The cost of a ticket for the space journey is $450,000. The tourists will spend 80 minutes in space, with several minutes experiencing weightlessness.
While the spacecraft is in orbit around the Earth, astronauts will enjoy weightlessness and a breathtaking view from the numerous windows of the spacecraft.
The suborbital flight is planned for Friday, January 26th, from Spaceport America, USA.
Who is Lina Borozdina
Lionella (Lina, Lisa) Borozdina was born in Odesa in 1969. She graduated from school there and earned a master's degree in Biochemistry at Odesa National Polytechnic University.
Lina's father, Yurii, was born in Moscow but later moved to Odesa. According to the book "Destination Space: Making Science Fiction a Reality" by journalist and writer Kenny Kemp, Borozdin was a KGB agent who served in the East, including India and Myanmar. In 1979, he was supposed to go to Afghanistan for two years, but he resigned from service.
The Soviet leadership did not allow him to return to Moscow, so he and his family returned to Odesa, where his wife's family lived. His supervisor was Yurii Andropov, the future General Secretary of the USSR from 1982 to 1984.
Lina Borozdina (Photo: facebook.com/lina.birch)
Lina Borozdina (Photo: facebook.com/lina.birch)
Lina Borozdina (Photo: facebook.com/lina.birch)
Lina's mother, Emilia, was Jewish and worked as an English language translator, becoming the Ukrainian table tennis champion. She passed away in 1982.
After the collapse of the USSR, Lina Borozdina emigrated to the USA with a passport from a non-existent state, seeking political asylum. She learned English and washed laboratory glassware in a pharmaceutical company until she could apply her higher education.
Initially, Lina lived in Los Angeles with her aunt Eva. She later married a Russian man, whom she soon divorced. For a time, she worked as a model for a clothing store and then met her second husband.
From 1992 to 1996, Borozdina worked as a research associate at the biopharmaceutical company Genta in California, specializing in developing drugs for cancer patients. The company went bankrupt in 2012.
From 1997, Lina worked at Chromagen until 2000. From 2001, she held the position of Senior Research Scientist. She then worked for another company involved in the discovery, development, and commercialization of innovative products for the oncology and antiviral markets. The next company, Egea Biosciences (acquired by Johnson & Johnson in 2004), focused on gene synthesis technology and protein structure.
Lina Borozdina (Photo: facebook.com/lina.birch)
Lina Borozdina (Photo: facebook.com/lina.birch)
Lina Borozdina (Photo: facebook.com/lina.birch)
Lina Borozdina (Photo: facebook.com/lina.birch)
Lina Borozdina (Photo: facebook.com/lina.birch)
In 2004, Borozdina obtained US citizenship. From 2009 to 2023, she worked as a customer relations manager at American International Chemical. Since April 2019, she has been a specialist in the sale of nucleic acid chemistry instruments at BioSearch Technologies, the genomics division of LGC.
Lina purchased her ticket for the space flight in 2005 for $200,000, having to mortgage her house for the second time. However, she became one of the first 10 participants on the flight.
"I am going to see the whole Earth. But the very idea of being so far from it is priceless. One of the main reasons I invested money is that I could have waited until it became cheaper and more accessible. I did it because when there is a dream and if you don't invest money in it, it remains a dream," Borozdina explained.
Earlier, we reported on a module approaching Earth with human remains.
