Having been to the bottom of the ocean five times with Titanic and Avatar director James Cameron, and having spent four hours (in 30 second bursts) floating weightless in Zero G Corporation's 727, Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides feels ready for her next adventure--taking a suborbital space flight with Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic. She and her husband George T. Whitesides, who is now the CEO of Virgin Galactic, bought their tickets in 2005.
With a masters degree in biology from Caltech, a bachelors degree in biology from Stanford and a passion for exploration and space travel that dates back to kindergarten, Loretta wants to use her space flight to inspire the next generation with what is possible. She has a mission to teach young and old alike the value of dreaming big, taking care of our planet and taking care of each other.
Loretta is the Co-Creator of Yuri's Night, the annual world wide space party celebrated every April 12, that she created with George Whitesides in 2001 to celebrate the day the first human, Yuri Gagarin, and the first space shuttle flight launched. The event has been celebrated in over 500 cities in over 60 countries and the goal is to bring together artists, musicians, scientists and engineers to share their passion for space with the world.
Loretta is an Federal Aviation Administration certified flight attendant for Zero G Corporation's "G-Force One" with over 75 flights. Her dives to the bottom of the ocean are captured in Cameron's 3D IMAX film, Aliens of the Deep that premiered in 2005. She has also worked in the Canadian Arctic doing research on extreme environments for NASA and has worked at NASA's Ames Research Center, Johnson Space Center, Jet Propulsion Laboratory and headquarters as well as at the X Prize Foundation.
Her writing on science and space have been featured on Wired.com, TheAtlantic.com, AviationWeek.com, and StarWars.com. Her passions include making science cool, inspiring people with what they are capable of, being a connector, hiking, star gazing and training to be a Jedi. She lives in the Mojave Desert outside Los Angeles with her husband and their two children.
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Looking up into the bright Mojave sky in 2004, I strained to keep my eyes on the tiny spaceship 50,000 feet up. "Three, two, one... release, release, release!" came the call over the loudspeakers.