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The launch next month of the first fully civilian mission to orbit is an ambitious test for a burgeoning space industry’s futuristic dream of sending many more ordinary people into space over the next few years.
Why is this important: Businesses and nations envision millions of people living and working in space without having to become government-backed professional astronauts. Those hopes hinge on SpaceX’s next crewed mission, called Inspiration4.
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Previous launches have taken billionaires into suborbital space or sent space tourists to the International Space Station alongside professional astronauts, but this mission is the first with a crew made up entirely of amateur astronauts.
What is happening: Inspiration4 is indeed a proof of concept for the idea that an all-civilian mission aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft – and apparently that all-amateur spaceflight – can work.
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Four crew members – Jared Isaacman, Sian Proctor, Chris Sembroski and Hayley Arceneaux – will be launched on top of a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla. On September 15.
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They will orbit Earth for about three days, flying higher than the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope before arriving for a water landing off the coast of Florida.
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During their mission, the crew will live up close, look at the Earth and stars, conduct science experiments, and keep an eye on their spacecraft’s performance while mission controllers monitor it from the ground.
The big picture: SpaceX wants space travel to someday be akin to air travel so that anyone who wants to can fly in orbit or in remote parts of space.
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“We would love to see planes like – airlines, like – operations from a manned flight point of view, and so this chance to have our first fully civilian commercial flight is great,” Benji Reed, director of human resources, told me. SpaceX manned flights.
Yes, but: Flying in space has nothing to do with a commercial airliner, at least not yet.
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It took this crew months of training in locations across the United States to prepare for their launch, and it has dominated their lives since the full crew was announced in March.
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All four of the crew actually took a crash course in astronaut training, spending time in simulators, studying tons of notes on their own time, and taking SpaceX quizzes.
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While they might not be professionals, they certainly won’t be like a typical airline passenger when they fly to space in September. Their training was indeed a test of how much pre-flight instruction ordinary people will need to fly into orbit and how quickly this process can go.
How it works: The Inspiration4 crew was chosen by means that are more akin to something on reality TV than the selection of professional astronauts.
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Isaacman wanted the mission to be fully civilian from the start and he didn’t just want to take a few of his friends for the ride.
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Instead, he decided to add a fundraising component – raising $ 100 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in addition to Isaacman’s $ 100 million donation – and open seats to complete strangers.
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Sembroski was chosen via a raffle that anyone could participate in. Proctor won its seat in a competition for entrepreneurs. Arceneaux – a childhood cancer survivor treated by St. Jude who is now a medical assistant at the hospital – was chosen by the charity to represent her in space.
The bottom line: Inspiration4 is a coming-of-age moment for a teenage commercial spaceflight industry trying to transport many more people to space in the future.
Go further: Listen to the first episode of the new season of Axios’ How it Happened: The Next Astronauts here.
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