The crew of SpaceX, totally civilian, only feeling a “good kind” of nervousness before launch

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida, Sept. 14 (Reuters) – Four future citizen astronauts ready to mount a SpaceX rocket around the world as the first all-civilian crew launched into orbit said Tuesday it was eager to take off the eve of his flight, feeling only “the right kind” of nervousness.

“I was just worried that this moment would never come into my life. Let’s get started, let’s do it,” said Sian Proctor, 51, a geoscience teacher, artist and lifelong space enthusiast who was a finalist. in 2009 NASA’s candidate program for astronauts was previously cut.

Proctor also revealed that she and her flight attendants received a phone call from one of her personal heroes, former First Lady Michelle Obama, who wished them well, an honor she said “would stay with me the rest of my life “.

The “Inspiration4” quartet is due to leave the 39A launch complex at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on Wednesday at 8pm (0000 GMT) for an orbital flight expected to last about three days before the fall.

Proctor and his crew: Ecommerce billionaire and jet pilot Jared Isaacman, 38, physician assistant Hayley Arceneaux, 29, and aerospace data engineer Chris Sembroki, 42, went ask a few questions from reporters at a pre-launch briefing inside a SpaceX hangar more than 24 hours before launch time.

Behind them, visible in the distance through the open doors of the hangar, were the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and the Crew Dragon capsule designed to take them to a target orbital altitude of 360 miles (575 km) above Earth, higher than the International Space Station.

This goes far beyond the inaugural astro-tourism flights made this summer by SpaceX rivals Virgin Galactic (SPCE.N) and Blue Origin, which took their respective multimillion-dollar founders Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos on the trip.

These two suborbital trips, while high enough for their equipment to experience a few moments of microgravity, ended in a matter of minutes.

The high orbital flight planned for Inspiration4 carries greater risks, including increased exposure to radiation in space. But crew members professed the utmost confidence in SpaceX, the California-based private rocket company founded by billionaire businessman Elon Musk.

Isaacman, founder and CEO of electronic financial services company Shift4 Payments Inc (FOUR.N), is the creator and benefactor of the mission, as he has paid Musk an undisclosed but presumably huge sum to make the four crew members were put into orbit.

Musk joined a pre-“check-in” call on Tuesday and assured us that the entire management is focused solely on that mission, ”Isaacman told reporters when asked about pre-launch nerves. “There’s no nervousness. I’m just excited to start.”

Arceneaux, a childhood bone cancer survivor who now works with young lymphoma and leukemia patients at the St. John’s Children’s Research Center. Jude of Memphis, Tennessee, which the Inspiration4 mission was largely designed to promote, said she was “so excited.”

“Any inconvenience is good,” he added. “I’m just waiting tomorrow to get here.”

Joining the event on Tuesday were at least one retired NASA astronaut, Catherine “Cady” Coleman, 60, a veteran of two space shuttle missions who spoke to wish the crew of Inspiration4 and the he said, “We want to welcome you to the family.”

Report by Julio-Cesar Chávez to Cape Canaveral, Florida; Additional writing and reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Edited by Peter Cooney

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