Florida photographer befriends and documents first civilian crew’s first preparation for SpaceX launch

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. – As a high school student on the space coast, John Kraus thought he would try photography as a passing hobby. He’s now tackling something new: photographing the first all-civilian crew as it prepares to explode on a SpaceX rocket from the Kennedy Space Center on September 15th.

“I just picked up a random camera when I was 15 years old. I didn’t really think it was anything other than a hobby or a hobby. And it was slowly making snowballs once I launched my first rocket launch towards this obsessive hobby, you see, looking weeks ahead of the next launch and planning my shots, ”said Kraus, who now has 21 “And I blinked and now I’m doing it full time professionally.”

When Shift4Payment CEO Jared Isaacman launched the Inspiration 4 contest on February 1, he made a call for anyone in the United States to win a flight with the Dragon Crew along with him and St. Louis Medical Assistant. Jude, 29, Hayley Arceneaux, interested space travelers could participate in the competition donating to St. Jude or using Shift4Shop to share your business stories on social media.

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The full crew includes Chris Sembroki, a graduate of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University who works in the aerospace industry in Seattle, and Dr.

Kraus could have been on board after raising $ 10,000 for St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Jude in an attempt to get one of the two seats, but after not being selected, got the next best.

“The mission commander, Jared Isaacman, came in handy a few weeks later and said,‘ Hey, I like your job, would you like to get on board as a photographer? and here I am taking pictures of the astronauts as they prepare to go into space. “

For Kraus, he says he feels that “99.9% won the competition even though I didn’t win.”

He has now been documenting his travel training to go into space for the past seven months, which for Kraus was a whole new skill set. He usually photographs the hardware he throws at people not so much at the astronauts on board.

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“The vast majority of my work with this campaign is to photograph these four people and their team members as they prepare to go into space and the last type of part is the rocket launch,” Kraus explained. “So learning to photograph people the way I’ve been doing has definitely been a challenge.”

Over the past few months, the crew has flown Mount Rainer in Washington, flown fighter jets in Montana, taken several zero-G flights, and been training at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California.

Photographing the crew during training on fighter jets and zero-Gs was fun and challenging, the 21-year-old said.

On a parabolic flight departing from Las Vegas, Kraus also experienced zero-G and was there to document the Inspiration 4 crew, as they also did for the first time.

“It was the toughest photo shoot I’ve ever done,” he said. “Trying to focus on four different people all moving in their own planes, as well as, you know, I move because you really have nothing to keep you anchored unless you like wall. And then you have to shoot at “a fast shutter speed to make sure you freeze them but … everyone is moving. It was such a dynamic environment. And I think I have decent things considering it was the first time I did it.”

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An unexpected benefit of this concert has been to meet the four people who are preparing to explode in space. He has also met his families.

“I didn’t expect to build the relationship I have with the crew, you know, one or two weeks I had already built with them the dynamic that I hoped I could build for the launch,” Kraus said. “Just watching them become so good friends with each other and then be with them. And developing a good relationship with them has been amazing. And better than anything I would have thought to enter.

The crew members of Inspiration 4 are an electric group: a billionaire businessman, a medical assistant from St. Jude, an engineer and a single NASA astronaut candidate turned educator. What they all have in common is that they are not NASA astronauts, they have not trained for years to go into space, but they have been in the right place at the right time and on September 15 they will be launched from the Center Kennedy spacecraft the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft on a Falcon 9 rocket.

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“Inspiration 4 is the first time we will have an orbital mission in space where all participants are not from a government agency,” Kraus explained. “These four astronauts, Jared Isaacman, Haley Arceneaux, Sian Proctor and Chris Sembroki, are just, you know, more or less everyday people like you and me doing this mission.”

The crew will launch and spend three days orbiting the Earth, documenting their experience, performing low-gravity science, and, according to Kraus, eating some comfortable food they bring.

“When you think about the big human scheme, we’ve only been in space for a long time. But I’ve never befriended a payload. I’ve never befriended Starlink satellites or of the GPS satellites. But I’ve befriended these four people. So it’s definitely personal for me to see them launch, “Kraus said of how the launch day will feel.

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The Inspiration 4 campaign will end up raising more than $ 200 million for St. Jude. Isaacman donated the first $ 100 million and the other half comes from the contest and a Netflix documentary and other fundraising efforts. Kraus sold prints of his photograph to raise money for the hospital and Proctor continues to raise funds through his space art campaign.

As part of his work with the crew, Kraus has been teaching them some photography skills so they can document their space flight.

“The crew came up to me and said,‘ How are you going to teach us how to take pictures in space? Kraus said. “It’s a little difficult now because I haven’t done it yet. But I was able to combine many of NASA’s imaging resources, some of my experience with just several types of photography, compiled into a written guide. “A video guide. And once we had our cameras on hand, and I split the kits in my hands, I’ve been helping them learn how to take pictures. And I hope they come back with some awesome pictures.”

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The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft will look a little different from the previous ones to dock at the International Space Station because it will have a dome at the top.

The Inspiration 4 mission launch window is currently 24 hours, but is expected to shrink closer to launch.

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