Jun. 17—Where’s the furthest you’ve ever traveled? Across the country? Across international seas?

How about space?

Las Cruces resident Jamila Gilbert, the internal communications lead for Virgin Galactic, became an astronaut in August 2023 when she flew on Virgin Galactic’s spaceship Unity.

It’s a day she’ll never forget.

With turquoise in her pockets, Gilbert floated weightlessly in a rocketship cabin while looking at “the most brilliant crystalline entity” she’s ever seen. One of the first things she did when she got back home was lock herself in her art studio with the darkest paint on Earth to illustrate what she’d seen in space.

Here’s a preview of the conversation Gilbert had with the Journal about her experience, which has been edited for length and clarity. Tech Outlook podcasts are released Monday afternoons on YouTube, Spotify, iTunes and SoundCloud.

What was the experience like?

“There are so many emotions that go into the actual flight.

But leading into that, you actually go and you train at Spaceport America here in southern New Mexico for three days. …You have a full medical team, a full training team, of course, your commander, your pilot, and you spend the entire week learning what it is that you need to prepare for as you head into your space flight. …

You’re doing a lot of muscle memory. So you want to make sure that you have that repeatability and that comfortability and getting in and out of your seat (in microgravity). … And then of course on spaceflight day you wake up in the morning, and you tell yourself, you’re going to space that day, which is not a very normal thought. …

Climbing aboard a spaceship, having the hatch go in, getting sealed in, feeling it get pressurized and knowing that you’re going to space is an exceptional, exceptional moment.

So into that, you start climbing. Our spaceship climbs to about 45,000 feet — that’s the release altitude point … and you get into your L14, L12, L2 checks. And that just means that you’ve got 14 minutes to launch, 12 minutes to launch, two minutes to launch. And in those two minutes, a calm came over me. But your heart rate is up because you realize that anytime they come back on, they’re going to be counting you down (then) release, release, release.

And at that moment you just feel your body float up, as the mothership pulls away from the spaceship, and the spaceship begins to fall. You feel the rocket motor kick on … It is steady onset pressure as you’re kind of beginning to pierce through the sky and get pitched up and head out of the atmosphere. So that is a pretty exceptional moment.”

You’re an artist, right? Did that impact how you were seeing things looking at Planet Earth?

“For me, being a visual artist, the sense was visual. I felt like my vision had gotten better. The clarity was immense. You are looking down and seeing the most brilliant crystalline entity that you’ve ever gazed upon. And it is so vast. It is incredible. …

You look out and you see our brilliant home planet just laid out there before you and … an endless, endless depth and it just goes on … It gives you a new appreciation for Planet Earth.”

What did you take in your pockets?

“So I took a few little watercolors that I painted myself … I took some little drawings that my nieces and nephews had made for me. And it’s actually pretty funny — one of my nieces, Ava, painted this picture of me going to the moon, and so while I was going to space that day, I did disappoint a 5-year-old as that was not actually the destination.

I took up these earrings,” she said, referencing turquoise bands she wore in her ears. “So I took up a lot of New Mexico turquoise …

I also took up my wedding ring.”

Though you’re with Virgin Galactic, you don’t have a background in astronautics. So how were you chosen to go on this flight?

“My background is in art. I studied languages and linguistics. I also have a degree in museum conservation. Actually, New Mexico State University is one of the only schools in the nation that has a museum conservation program. …

But no, my background is not in engineering or physics or anything technical like that. But I was selected because I was to provide feedback on the customer experiences as if I had purchased a ticket and was then going to space. And my background is very similar to many of our customers, our future astronauts, and they really wanted to send someone different than who had gone before.

Previously, everyone who had flown to space aboard Virgin Galactic had been either a pilot, an engineer or Richard Branson. So they wanted to send someone that could come back and talk about the experience in a different way.”

Less than 100 women and even fewer Latina or Hispanic people have gone to space. How does it feel to be part of that group?

“It’s just an immense, immense honor because I carry with me so many different diverse groups that have not historically had a huge footing in space.

So Latinas, women, I think there’s actually only a handful of people from the state of New Mexico to have gone to space.

And so I feel like just with that, I get to carry so many people with me.

But you know, Virgin Galactic is only one of just three companies in the world that are making commercial spaceflight a reality. And so it’s really exciting to be part of that class of 37 people who have ever flown aboard Unity, but also representing those groups to which I belong.”