Jon Goodwin - to space with Parkinson's

Whenever two people with Parkinson’s meet for the first time we ask each other the same questions - how long ago were you diagnosed and what are your symptoms? So when Jon Goodwin, soon to board a Virgin Galactic flight to the edge of space, called me this week we were soon swapping war stories.

He’d been diagnosed with Parkinson’s nine years ago when his doctor saw his tiny handwriting - micrographia is the technical term. My diagnosis came four years ago after I started dragging my right foot and TV viewers spotted the tremor in my right hand which I hadn’t noticed.

It turned out we had a lot in common when it came to symptoms, both experiencing a lot of weakness on the right hand side, making typing and taking the lids off jam jars hard and finding it easy to spill beer or coffee over ourselves or others.

But there the similarities end. Jon a mano f 80 who’s had Parkinson’s for nine years, is preparing to become the first paying customer on a Virgin Galactic flight, while I - in my mid-60s and much earlier in my Parkinson’s journey - am preparing for a gentle stroll around our local park.

It was in 2005. that Jon put down $200,000 to reserve a place on Virgin’s space tourism craft, with Richard Branson talking in 2008 of a first test flight in 2010. But numerous setbacks followed, including the 2014 crash in which a pilot died. When that same year Jon got his Parkinson’s diagnosis he thought his dream of space flight was over.

But the Virgin Galactic doctors have given him a thorough checkup, been through his medical history and he is good to go:

“I'm a reasonably fit person having been an Olympian (he competed as a canoeist in the 1972 Olympics) so you become aware of how your body works and how you can maximise it. A base of reasonable fitness has served me well over the years.”

I ask whether he will be taking his Parkinson’s medication on board but he explains that, as he only takes his pills every four hours, he can get away with dosing up before the 90 minute flight. I want to know why he is so eager at his age to undertake what many might regard as a scary mission:

“I'm looking forward to the silence of space, looking at the Earth from 55 miles, the curvature of the earth, the blackness of space.”

But he is not gung-ho about what lies ahead:

“I’m apprehensive as anyone would be. I think if you weren't apprehensive it would be wrong.”

He’s been through some training, twice experiencing extreme G forces in a centrifuge and flying at altitude in a converted Boeing 737 to be given some idea of the weightlessness he will experience for several minutes aboard the VSS Unity.

“It is a surreal experience But of course the problem is you've got to get back to your seat and because there’s no gravity you’ve got to pull yourself back in there.”

He admits that the progression of his Parkinson’s makes this kind of exertion a little bit more challenging:

“I can do all the things that I need to do a little bit slower - I find it takes me twice as long to do things now than it used to. I used to do things twice as quick as the average person anyway…I’ll be able to cope.”

Jon hopes that he can be an inspiration to other people with Parkinson’s and talks of the impact his message of positivity has already had on his local group in Stoke-on-Trent: “People get very depressed and ask - why me? Well, I've had an amazing life. If I die tomorrow, I'd be a happy bunny. It's just instilling in them you could do what I did.”

It is all a question of mind over matter, says Jon Goodwin. Along I suspect with many other “Parkies” I will be tuning into the livestream of Jon’s flight on August 10th - then maybe going for an extra long walk around the park.