SpaceX launched its Crew Dragon spacecraft with four private citizens aboard on September 15th. (Image Credit: SpaceX)
This opens a lot of doors to the future of space travel. Private contractors in space soon? I hope that's good news.
On September 15th, SpaceX launched its Crew Dragon spacecraft with four more private citizens into Earth orbit, bringing the population to a record-breaking 14, one more than the previous high. The Inspiration4 mission lifted off from Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 8:02 p.m. EDT, kick-starting a five-hour window. All fourteen citizens are currently living on three different spacecraft orbiting Earth. Meanwhile, the newly-added four crew members consist of Jared Isaacman, Hayley Arceneaux, Sian Proctor, and Chris Sembroski. However, Inspiration4 is expected to return to Earth on September 18th.
It all started ten months ago when Isaacman announced plans to embark on a spaceflight that launches private citizens into space. Isaacman took a different approach compared to other billionaires headed into space by raising money and awareness for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The tech entrepreneur billionaire purchased a flight on a Dragon spacecraft from SpaceX and used those seats to help reach his objective while raising money for children’s cancer research.
The first seat was awarded to Hayley Arceneaux, a cancer survivor and physician’s assistant working for the organization that saved her life. She became the youngest American to lift off into space and the first one to achieve this with a prosthesis. The second seat was awarded during an auction that raised $13 million for St. Jude. That winner was selected from a pool of donors, which turned out to be one of Chris Sembroski’s friends who gave him the seat.
To win the final seat, entrepreneurs across the U.S. created a shop to collect donations for St.Jude. In this contest, contestants submitted videos to promote their shops. Stan Proctor, a geoscientist and professor at Southern Mountain Community College in Pheonix, Arizona, won this contest for her effort to sell art and poetry.
Overall, the entire flight is a preview of SpaceX’s hopes to start a new space era, allowing regular people to fly into space.
Isaacman, Arceneaux, Proctor, and Sembroski became the fourth crew to fly in a Dragon capsule. Isaacman serves as the mission’s commanders while Proctor acts as his pilot, and Arceneaux and Sembroski serving as mission specialists.
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