Elon Musk pledges $ 50 million to Inspiration4 fundraiser for St. Jude

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk helped reach St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital’s fundraising goal for Inspiration4 space flight, just hours after his company fired the crew from orbit.

The main goal of the Inspiration4 mission, which launched on Wednesday and collapsed on Saturday, was to raise $ 200 million for St. Jude.

Inspiration4 Commander Jared Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur who bought the flight from SpaceX, personally donated $ 100 million to St. Jude. The Inspiration4 mission had raised an additional $ 60.2 million in donations, before Musk pledged to contribute $ 50 million himself, bringing the campaign’s total to over $ 210 million.

“Count me for $ 50 million,” Musk said in a tweet on Saturday.

The historic Inspiration4 mission with a private crew spent three days in space, carrying Isaacman, pilot Sian Proctor, medic Hayley Arceneaux and mission specialist Chris Sembroski. The crew circled the Earth at an altitude of up to 590 kilometers, which is above the International Space Station and the most distant humans have traveled above the surface for years.

Spaceflight has passed several milestones, including: the first private SpaceX space flight, the first entirely unprofessional crew to become an astronaut, the first black female spacecraft pilot, the youngest American astronaut to date, and the first person to fly. in space with a prosthesis.