the times | Saturday July 6 2019 1SM 3 News Mo Farah Russia opens claims silver . . . at school final frontier sports day

Valentine Low

Sir Mo Farah is the most successful British runner in modern Olympic to space buffs times, winning four gold medals as well as distance titles in successive world championships. Marc Horne At a school sports day, not so much. Scolpaig . . . we have lift-off A fellow competitor in the parents’ Throughout the dark days of the Cold race at his son Hussein’s school in War Soviet space facilities were top It might not have the cachet of Cape southwest London has achieved what secret and strictly off limits to all but the Canaveral but a Hebridean island many of the finest athletes of their gen- most important of apparatchiks. will soon be home to Scotland’s first eration so often failed to do, by showing Soviet civilians were oblivious while space centre. Farah, 36, a clean pair of heels. security services in the West would Scolpaig, on North Uist’s Admittedly, the 60 metres is not have paid huge sums for a glimpse of northwest coast, is being developed really Farah’s distance: it might have the clandestine testing unit attempting as a base from where rockets will be been a different story over 5,000 me- to reach the stars. sent into orbit. tres, let alone 10,000 metres. A remarkable deal between a The consortium behind the But a victory against an Olympic Scottish travel company and the Rus- project, called Spaceport 1, is led by champion is still a victory. sian space port means that amateur the Western Isles council, which is In a video posted to Instagram by his cosmologists can take a giant leap into spending about £1 million on buying wife Tania, Farah is seen being beaten the Star City training centre — for land for the facility. into second place by a man believed to about £30,000. The first phase of the project is be a teacher at the school in Hampton For that not insignificant sum, devot- under way and will include the Court. Farah finished just ahead of a ed stargazers will be housed in quarters creation of the basic infrastructure catering boss. used by Yuri Gargarin, the first person needed for rocket launch trials. A source told the London Evening in space, before being flown to Kazakh- The second phase will put in Standard: “Mo likes to get involved — stan to meet a three-man crew destined place the facilities to launch and luckily holds back so he doesn’t for the International Space Station. larger vehicles capable of make us look bad.” They will enjoy VIP treatment while orbit, followed by One supporter said: “The story of the watching the manned launch. equipment to allow bloke who beat Mo will be told to every- After years of talks Big Wide World launch vehicles to be one he meets.” Travel, in Fife, secured exclusive assembled on site. Fortunately for the family pride, permission to bring visitors into the It is expected to three-year-old Hussein and his mother Russian facilities. create 70 jobs for the are believed to have won their races. Nicola Livingston, the company’s Western Isles. The Michelle Griffith-Robinson, the director, said: “We have secured VIP consortium consists of Tourists can former Olympic triple jumper and a access to the launch on September 25 the council, Highlands train at Star friend of the couple, told Lady Farah on which will take three astronauts to the and Islands Enterprise, City where Yuri Instagram: “You should’ve given the International Space Station. the security firm QinetiQ Gagarin, the others a head start.” “This will include a private meeting and Commercial Space Soviet cosmonaut, Last year Farah, 36, admitted on A with the trio before they embark on Technologies in London. prepared for his League of Their Own that he had fin- their mission, a chance to meet and talk space mission ished third in a similar contest. He told with Kazakhstan-based Nasa officials James Corden, the host: “I turned up and to experience the launch alongside jet. There they will meet the cosmonaut would be people willing to pay £30,000 thinking I was going to win and got my the family and friends of the departing Oleg Skripochka, the Nasa astronaut for such close access. ass kicked. Not just third, but the geezer astronauts. Jessica Meir and Hazza al-Mansouri “If they are taking people through [who won] was wearing jeans and still “Nothing like this has been offered to from the United Arab Emirates. astronaut training it is probably not an kicked my butt.” the public before. It is unique and we are Baikonur is also being used by Nasa unreasonable sum of money,” he said. anticipating a huge amount of interest but their launches will return to the US “People are paying huge sums for the decided to go to Disney World instead.” from around the world.” in the near future. chance to actually go into space, so the Tourists are expected to set off on After travelling to Star City, the Ms Livingston said: “The crew cost is far less than that. space flights from the Scottish Russian space training centre that was members will actually be in quarantine “The Russians have a history of Highlands and Cornwall within a few top secret and kept off maps in the but our clients will get to meet them and trying to make money out of their space years, with Virgin Galactic the most Soviet era, visitors will take part in their speak to them through glass just before programme and good on them.” likely carrier. cosmonaut training programme. they head off. Alastair Bruce, of the University of The trips will take passengers beyond They will be instructed by Steven “Places are going to be extremely Edinburgh school of physics and astro- the Earth’s atmosphere where they can Swanson, a US astronaut who travelled limited to between eight and 12 people. nomy, said: “I could imagine paying for experience weightlessness and see the to the space station in 2014. When Nasa moves back to the US you that experience myself. curvature of the planet. After a three-night stay, with accom- are not going to get the same kind of “To get to meet the astronauts brings More than 600 people, including panied access to restricted areas, the access.” home the element of risk involved. I still Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, group — whose numbers will be capped Mark Hempsell, an aerospace regret passing up the chance I had to have already paid £160,000 to take part at 12 — will be taken to Baikonur engineer and spokesman for the British see a space shuttle take off. I was in in the inaugural suborbital flights. Olympic champion Mo Farah found Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan by private Interplanetary Society, felt that there Florida when I was aged ten but Saturday essay, pages 32-33 the parents' race unexpectedly tough