There aren't many teenagers who spent their last summer holiday voyaging through outer space – in fact, there's only one. At first, Anastatia (Ana) Mayers, an 18-year-old philosophy and physics student at Aberdeen University, didn't believe her mum when she told her she'd won a competition to take them both to space – until Richard Branson FaceTimed her to confirm the news. “I was absolutely speechless,” Ana tells GLAMOUR.
In August, Ana and her mum, Keisha Schahaff, boarded the first commercial Virgin Galactic flight – ‘Galactic 02’ – into space. As well as becoming the first mother-and-daughter duo to go to space, Ana and Keisha's presence on Galactic 02 contributed to several important milestones for women in space. They are the first female astronauts from the Caribbean, the sixth and seventh Black women to go to space, and formed the first majority female spaceflight.
The magnitude of Ana's achievement – which arose after Keisha entered a Virgin Galatic competition to go to space – is still sinking in. She tells GLAMOUR, “I don't think I can really fathom the depth of making history.”
Here, Ana speaks to GLAMOUR about her passion for physics, why she wants to inspire others to follow their dreams, and – of course – what it feels like to gaze at Earth from the outside…
GLAMOUR: Hi Ana! Thanks for chatting with us today. How did you feel when you found out you were going to space?!
Ana: My mum had called me, and she told me that we were going to space and I didn't really believe her. I was like, "Are you okay?" And then Richard Branson took the phone, and he was like, “No, you guys won, you're going to space.”
Awesome. Were you always interested in space?
I chose my university course [philosophy and physics) because I'm interested in science and physics, but I wanted to know more about the why, because physics offers the what and philosophy would be the why, explaining how we came to these conclusions and why these are the conclusions that we've made and how they're helpful and all of that. So I definitely think that there's a really good balance there.
And I think that also with this trip, the degree that I'm studying has really helped me process it because it's very exciting seeing all of this science in action, but then really being able to sit there and be really mindful of the experience that I'm having and the depth of it and relating it to myself and humanity as well.
When I was younger, I used to watch all of these videos about space, not only space travel but also explanations and research that they had found up in space. And it was so interesting to me. I'm aspiring to be an astrobiologist and all of this has really just inspired me to be the one doing that research. That would be a dream come true for me.
Did you ever envisage that one day you would actually go to space?
I definitely imagined it, but I didn't think it would be a serious possibility. It's definitely something that I'm still processing as well.
Can you talk me a little bit through the process of finding out you're going to go to space and then actually going to space? Were there nerves?
I haven't told anyone this, but after I found out that we were going, I researched every single thing about Virgin Galactic and how the flight would go. So I wasn't nervous at all because I had done so much research that what I was told during training just reconfirmed everything for me and just put my mind at ease a little bit more. I was honestly just so excited throughout the entire process. And yeah, I was so excited to be doing it with my mom as well.
This is a surreal question to ask, but how did it feel once you left the Earth?
It's a strange feeling. I can't quite explain it, but it took me a little bit by surprise. When my arms started floating, I was so confused as to what was happening. It's like you know what to expect, but then you'll never really know what to expect until you experience it because such an odd feeling that you can't really replicate it on Earth as well. It feels almost as if you're in the water but without the water tension. So you're floating, but you still have a lot of control of your body and it's not any harder to move around or anything like that. It's just a feeling of freedom and more space.
How nice was it to have your mum by your side throughout this process?
It was great. It was definitely an emotional experience as well, having my mum there for something so huge. It was definitely very comforting to have her there and inspiring to be able to do this with someone that you love so much and someone that you look up to so much.
Do you think that women and girls will be inspired by what you and your mum achieved?
I really do hope so. I've already been getting some messages from people who are younger than me asking about the experience and saying how inspired they are. And I am honestly just hoping that this experience inspires others to take themselves seriously – to take their dreams seriously.
Has the experience helped you take your dreams seriously?
It's definitely woken me up a little bit and gotten me out of the mindset of the ‘I wish I could’ and put me in the mindset of ‘I can do this.’
I know that I've been really worried about how life is going to go and where I need to be and what I need to be doing, but it's inspired me to also just be like, ‘This is the only life that I get, and I need to live it to the fullest.’ And so it's really helped me to stop worrying about the smaller things, the smaller problems that I make so big and just appreciate what I have and what I can do.
How important is it to see women represented in scientific fields, especially astrophysics?
We need diversity in all fields… in everything. I honestly think that it shouldn't depend on your gender; it should just depend on how much you know and what you can do, your abilities and stuff like that because we have some extremely smart women out there and given the chance they could also change the world.
For more from Glamour UK's Lucy Morgan, follow her on Instagram @lucyalexxandra.
