Another billionaire sent tourists to space safely

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(News)
– Four space tourists safely ended their pioneering orbit journey on Saturday with an Atlantic water landing off the coast of Florida, according to the AP. Their SpaceX capsule was parachuted into the ocean just before sunset, not far from where their chartered flight began three days earlier. The fully amateur crew were the first to tour the world without a professional astronaut. The billionaire who paid undisclosed millions for the trip and his three guests wanted to show that ordinary people could get into orbit on their own, and SpaceX founder Elon Musk took them as the first tourists to ascend. on company rockets. SpaceX’s fully automated Dragon capsule reached an unusually high altitude of 363 miles after takeoff on Wednesday night. Passing 100 miles past the International Space Station, passengers savored views of Earth through a large bubble-shaped window added to the top of the capsule.

The four men made their way through the atmosphere early Saturday evening, the first space travelers to complete their flight in the Atlantic from Apollo 9 in 1969. The previous two ditching SpaceX crew – carrying astronauts for NASA – were in the Gulf of Mexico. Within minutes, a pair of SpaceX boats pulled up beside the floating capsule. When the hatch was opened on the salvage vessel, healthcare worker Hayley Arceneaux was the first to exit, smiling broadly and giving a thumbs up. Everything seemed good and happy. Their families were waiting near the stage for Wednesday night’s launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. This time, NASA was little more than an encouraging spectator, its only connection being the Kennedy launch pad once used for Apollo lunar fire and shuttle crews, but now leased by SpaceX.

Isaacman, 38, an accomplished entrepreneur and pilot, aimed to raise $ 200 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. By donating $ 100 million himself, he organized a lottery for one of the four seats. He also ran a contest for clients of his Allentown, Pa., Payment processing business, Shift4 Payments. Arceneaux, 29, medical assistant from St. Jude who was treated at hospital in Memphis, Tennessee almost two decades ago for bone cancer, and competition winners Chris Sembroski, 42, data engineer in Everett, Wash., and Sian Proctor, 51, a community college teacher, scientist, and artist from Tempe, Arizona. Foreigners until March, the four spent six months training and preparing for potential emergencies during the flight – but there was no need to intervene, officials said after their return.

During the trip called Inspiration4, they had time to chat with patients in St. Jude, perform medical tests on themselves, ring the closing bell for the New York Stock Exchange and draw pictures. and the ukulele. Arceneaux, the youngest American in space and the first to wear a prosthesis, assured her patients: “I was a little girl undergoing cancer treatment like many of you, and if I can. do, you can do it. ” They also got calls from Tom Cruise, interested in his own SpaceX flight to the space station for the shoot, and Bono from rock band U2. Even their space menu was not typical: cold pizzas and sandwiches, but also pasta bolognese and Mediterranean lamb. The 60-year-old dashboard now has 591 people who have reached space or its edges – and is expected to skyrocket as space tourism heats up.

(Read more SpaceX stories.)



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