During a recent Zero-Gravity flight, the 33 year-old engineer flew like a super hero in the cabin of a modified Boeing 727-200 aircraft, taking a giant leap toward realizing her dream of spaceflight.
"I chose the zero-gravity flight to experience for myself how real astronauts and cosmonauts soar and float in space," Mora said. "It was brilliant, hovering through the air, holding the Philippine flag. I was overwhelmed."
For Mora, who studied electrical engineering in Japan, floating weightless is the newest on her growing list of gravity-defying activities, such as scuba diving, skydiving and equestrian sports. "I get increasingly excited when I think about which space experience is next on the menu for me," she said.
Mora experienced the same conditions felt by astronauts walking on the moon and Mars, as the aircraft performed a series of parabolic maneuvers.
The airplane begins from level flight and pitches up to approximately 45 degrees. At that point, the passengers experience two Gs of force on the ascent and depending on the flight pattern, various gravities on the descent, including zero, lunar and Martian, Space Adventures said in a press statement.
According to Space Adventures communications manager Christopher Walsh, each parabola requires a block of airspace from about 25,000 to 35,000 feet.
Walsh added that passengers on the zero-gravity flight obtain approximately 28 to 30 seconds of microgravity or zero-gravity during each parabola.There are usually up to 12 parabolasper flight.
Space Adventures is the only company to have successfully launched private explorers into space and is headquartered in Vienna, Virgina with offices in Cape Canaveral in Florida, Moscow in Russia and Tokyo, Japan.
It offers a variety of programs such as the availability today for orbital spaceflight missions to the International Space Station, commercial missions around the moon, zero-gravity and jet flights, cosmonaut training, spaceflight qualification programs and reservations on future suborbital spacecraft.
The company’s advisory board includes Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin, space shuttle astronauts Sam Durrance, Robert Gibson, Tom Jones, Byron Lichtenberg, Norm Thagard, Kathy Thornton, Pierre Thuot, Charles Walker, Skylab astronaut Owen Garriott and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Usachev. The company’s website is www. space adventures.com.
Mora is a volunteer rescue pilot for the Philippine Coast Guard Auxiliary (PCGA). One of her more notable flights was in 2004, when she took to the skies to search for survivors of the fire that gutted the SuperFerry 14.
In earlier interviews with The STAR and Starweek Magazine, Mora said she had dreamed of flying in space since she was four years old and on her first flight home to the Philippines from California, where she was born to Filipino parents — housewife Edna and businessman Benito Malutao Mora.
Because she was born in the US, Mora could have opted for US or dual citizenship, but she chose to be a Philippine citizen and she has the Philippine flag sewn on the chest of her pilot’s jumpsuit.
She recently learned to pilot hot air balloons and helped mount an airshow in her hometown of San Jose and she speaks fluent Arabic, Japanese, Spanish, English and Filipino.
Mora also likes to surf, sing, play the guitar, compose her own music, read and write poetry, and engage in motocross sports.
She is the only girl of a brood of five, the children of Mindoro natives who sought their fortunes in the United States but returned home eventually to settle on the island.