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Four private space travelers will make history this week when they take off aboard a SpaceX rocket on the first fully civilian (and privately funded) trip to orbit.
The four crew members of the mission, called Inspiration4, are lay astronauts with diverse careers, ranging from scientific communications and medical care to payment systems. After six months of training together, Shift4 billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, geoscientist Sian Proctor, bone cancer survivor and medical assistant Haley Arcenaux and data engineer Chris Sembroski are in the final days before their launch on Wednesday (15 September).
Here’s a quick look at each of the Inspiration4 astronauts based on interviews from Space.com and other media.
Live Updates: SpaceX’s Inspiration4 Fully Civilian Private Orbital Mission
Following: SpaceX’s all-civilian private mission Inspiration4 in pictures
Jared isaacman
Jared Isaacman, 38, made a billionaire fortune as the founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments, but kept his dreams of space alive in other ways. Before purchasing the SpaceX flight and his teammates’ seats for an undisclosed price, he toured the world at high speed, participated in several air shows, and became the owner of the jet pilot training company Draken. International. He has flown around 6,000 hours in various flight planes, which he believes could be useful for any spaceflight “eventuality” as he has faced in-flight emergencies. He will command the Inspiration4 flight.
Isaacman joked with Space.com, during a joint interview with teammate Sian Proctor, whom he is grateful to Netflix for covering the mission in a docu-series given how busy the crew has been training, which leaves little time to think about the importance of this mission in their life.
“We haven’t had the opportunity to pause and reflect on all these life-changing milestones we’ve been through,” he added. “We are looking forward to a few days of quarantine downtime, to prepare for the big day. But we are very confident in our training, confident in the hardware, software and the amazing SpaceX team that will support us in this. business.”
Isaacman is using the Inspiration4 mission to try to raise $ 200 million to help childhood cancer control efforts through St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. He himself donated $ 100 million. The other three seats represent hope, prosperity and generosity, he said.
Sian Proctor
Sian Proctor, 51, is a professor of geosciences at South Mountain Community College in Phoenix, Ariz., And will be the first person from Guam to fly into space and has completed four analog space missions, including the all-female Sensoria Mars 2020 mission. at the Hawaii Space Exploration Simulation and Analog Habitat (HI-SEAS).
In a Interview on Space.com, Proctor said training for Inspiration4 enabled her to fulfill a childhood dream of being an F-16 pilot, as she received fighter jet training in the MiG-29 with similar capabilities.
“I loved it. I was able to control it and do a few turns and tack,” she said. “It behaves very well. I am a pilot of a Cessna 172, that’s what I learned, so starting from an accessory[eller] Cessna plane to a MiG-29 is a big jump. But again, going from a MiG-29 to a Falcon 9 rocket is also a big leap. “
Proctor also talks about the “family aspect” of the crew, how they trained during a pandemic, their love of watercolor painting, and how their life experience as a geoscientist , artist and black science communicator will be added to the objectives of the mission.
Proctor was selected as the Prosperity HQ on the Inspiration4 mission as part of a competition to build an e-commerce store on the Shift4Shop platform owned by Isaacman’s Shift4Payments company. His Space2Inspire store offers prints and postcards of her art, which she uses to educate and discuss women of color in the space industry.
Hayley Arceneaux
Hayley Arceneaux, 29, is a medical assistant at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and is Hope’s HQ and Inspiration4 flight’s medical officer. She was chosen by St. Jude as the mission ambassador.
At Arceneaux Interview on Space.com, she recalled the surprise email she received from her colleagues about the Inspiration4 mission, which kicked off her space experience.
“They told me how this first all-civilian mission was being used in earnest and for the benefit of St. Jude, and they absolutely shocked me when they asked me if I wanted to be part of it and go to space. . Immediately I said yes, and then I was like, ‘Let me check with my family,’ “she said.
By a funny coincidence, Arceneaux’s brother and sister-in-law are aerospace engineers, so once she received an informal safety briefing from them and her mother’s thumbs up, Arceneaux felt that ‘she could go.
Arceneaux feels extremely lucky to have this opportunity; as a childhood bone cancer survivor living with a prosthesis (most of one of her femoral bones was removed along with a tumor and replaced with a prosthesis that enlarged over time as she was growing up), she would have been disqualified from NASA astronaut opportunities and was never considered to be an astronaut, she added. But her medical background will come in handy, as she will serve as the crew’s chief medical officer in space.
Chris Sembroski
Chris Sembroski, 41, is a data engineer and former advisor to the US Space Camp, as well as a former volunteer with ProSpace, a space lobby group aimed at enabling commercial space companies such as SpaceX to conduct operations. He flies on the Generosity seat on Inspiration4, which was awarded to the winner of a fundraising campaign that only asked participants to donate to St. Jude. A friend actually won the siege and then passed it on to Semproski.
“I am completely honored to be part of the first fully civilian mission to space,” Sembroski said in a statement. “Joining the Inspiration4 crew and their mission to support St. Jude is truly a dream come true. There are so many people who have given their time and talents to support this dream. I hope this flight inspires others to pour out this generosity by pledging their support for St. Jude and encouraging children to dream the impossible, ushering in a new era of space exploration open to all. ”
Sembroski also served in the US Air Force, servicing Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles and serving in Iraq. He now works at Lockheed Martin.
SpaceX will launch Inspiration4 astronauts on a used Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon Resilience rocket on Wednesday, September 15 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Take-off is scheduled for 8 p.m. EDT (0000 September 16 GMT).
Visit Space.com on launch day for full coverage of SpaceX’s Inspiration4 mission.
Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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