[ad_1]
CAP CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – SpaceX’s first private flight took off on Wednesday night with two winners of the competition, a healthcare worker and their wealthy sponsor, the most ambitious jump to date in space tourism.
It was the first time that a rocket had made its way into orbit with an all-amateur crew – no professional astronauts.
The two men and two women of the Dragon capsule plan to spend three days circling the world from an unusually high orbit – 160 kilometers higher than the International Space Station – before landing off the coast of Florida this week. -end.
At the helm of the theft is Jared Isaacman, 38, who made his fortune with a payment processing company he started as a teenager.
This is the first time SpaceX founder Elon Musk has entered the Space Tourism Dollars contest. Isaacman is the third billionaire to launch this summer, following brief skimming flights from Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos of Blue Origin in July.
Hayley Arceneaux, 29, a childhood cancer survivor who works as a medical assistant where she was treated – St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, joins Isaacman on the trip known as Inspiration4. Isaacman has pledged $ 100 million out of his own pocket to the hospital and is seeking an additional $ 100 million in donations.
Also in the game: contest winners Chris Sembroski, 42, a data engineer in Everett, Wash., And Sian Proctor, 51, a community college teacher in Tempe, Arizona.
Arceneaux is set to become the youngest American woman in space and the first person in space with a prosthesis, a titanium rod in her left leg.
The recycled Falcon rocket flew from the same Kennedy Space Center pad used by the company’s three previous astronaut flights for NASA. But this time, the Dragon capsule was aiming for an altitude of 357 miles (575 kilometers), just beyond the Hubble Space Telescope.
Their fully automated capsule has already been in orbit: it was used for SpaceX’s second astronaut flight for NASA to the space station. The only significant change is the large domed window at the top in place of the usual space station docking mechanisms.
Isaacman, an accomplished pilot, persuaded SpaceX to take the Dragon capsule higher than it has ever been. Initially reluctant due to the increased radiation exposure and other risks, SpaceX agreed after a safety review.
“Now I just wish we would push them to go higher,” Isaacman told reporters the day before the flight. “If we’re going to the Moon again and we’re going to Mars and beyond, then we have to step out of our comfort zone a bit and take the next step in that direction.”
Isaacman, whose Shift4 Payments company is based in Allentown, Pa., Takes the entire bill for the theft but won’t say how many millions he paid. He and others are supporting these big prices which will ultimately lower the cost.
“Yes, today you have to have and be ready to part with a large sum of money to buy yourself a trip to space,” said Explorers’ Club president Richard Garriott, son of a NASA astronaut who paid the Russians for a trip to the space station more than a decade ago. “But that’s the only way to lower prices and expand access, as has been the case with other industries before it.
Although the capsule is automated, the four Dragon pilots spent six months training for the flight to cope with any emergency. This training included flights of centrifuges and fighter jets, launch and re-entry exercises in SpaceX’s capsule simulator, and a grueling hike on Washington’s Mount Rainier in the snow.
Four hours before take-off, the four men emerged from SpaceX’s massive rocket hangar four hours before take-off, greeting and sending kisses to their families and company employees, before being whisked away to their fancy dresses. white flight suits. Once on the launch pad, they posed for photos and banged their gloved fists, before taking the elevator. Proctor danced as she walked over to the hatch.
Unlike NASA missions, the public will not be able to listen, let alone watch events unfold in real time. Arceneaux is hoping to connect with patients in St. Jude, but the conversation will not be broadcast live.
SpaceX’s next private trip, early next year, will see a retired NASA astronaut escort three wealthy businessmen to the space station for a week-long visit. The Russians are launching a Japanese actress, director and mogul to the space station in the coming months.
Once opposed to space tourism, NASA is now a supporter. The shift from government astronauts to non-professionals “is simply staggering,” said former NASA administrator Charles Bolden, former commander of the space shuttle.
“One day NASA astronauts will be the exception, not the rule,” said Mason Peck of Cornell University, an engineering professor who was NASA’s chief technologist nearly a decade ago. decade. “But they will likely continue to be the trailblazers that the rest of us will follow.”
___
The Associated Press’s Department of Health and Science receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
[ad_2]
Source link