Space vacationer Jon Goodwin reached for the celebrities and jumped for pleasure yesterday after racking up a string of out-of-this world achievements.

The 80-year-old Parkinson’s sufferer with the motto “anything is possible” defied the illness to turn out to be Virgin Galactic’s first paying passenger, Britain’s oldest astronaut and the primary Olympian to enterprise into the cosmos.

And, regardless of paying greater than £197,000 for his ticket on VSS Entity in 2005– about £300,000 in as we speak’s cash – his spouse Pauline stated: “He thinks he got a bargain!”

After coming again right down to Earth at Spaceport America within the New Mexico desert, Jon stated: “That is the most awesome thing I have done in my life. The pure beauty of the Earth...is completely surreal.”

He added: “I am hoping my flight will instil in other people – and other Parkinson’s sufferers – that it doesn’t stop you from doing things.”

Jon, from Baldwin’s Gate, Staffs, competed on the 1972 Munich Olympics as a slalom canoeist. He shared his newest journey with two different vacationers, Keisha Schahaff, 46, and her daughter Anastatia Mayers, 18, who gained their journey in a lottery draw.

VSS Unity was carried to 50,000ft by the twin-fuselage mothership VMS Eve. It then fired its rocket-powered motor and shot off at 2,600mph to succeed in sub-orbital house 55 miles up.

The house airplane raised its wings for re-entry, then lowered them to glide again down onto a runway.

Thrilled Jon hailed it: “The greatest of days.”