Milton girl heading to outer space

An 11 year-old girl from Milton is heading into outer space. Zainab Azim received a ticket aboard Virgin Galactic’s “Spaceship Two” for her 10th birthday from her parents.

The space tourism flight is the brain child of Sir Richard Branson and costs $250,000 U.S. dollars a ticket. It begins next year and Azim is the youngest person to secure a seat, but right now U.S. regulations require individuals to be 18 years old to fly to space.

The grade six student is keen to follow her dream of going into space, inspired by Canada’s famous astronaut Chris Hadfield who shares the same hometown.

“I looked at a couple of Chris Hadfield’s pictures and he took one of Australia and it looked like an abstract painting which was really cool. So I want to see life from that view,” she says.

Space tourism is in it’s infancy. Zainab’s father hopes that as it matures, regulations will loosen, allowing his daughter to go to space before age 18.

The real estate entrepreneur says the steep price tag is worth the experience.

“I think that kids have got a fabulous opportunity to do that. They learn a lot faster, they take it in and they apply it faster as well. So I think it’s a great thing to have a kid from our stand point.”

Zainab has loved outer space as long as she can remember. She doesn’t put too much stock in possibly being the youngest to go, she just wants to get there.

“Honestly from my heart I don’t care if I’m the youngest. I don’t care if I’m 50 when i go, I just want do it because its there for me to do it.”