The release next month of the first fully civilian mission into orbit is an ambitious test of the booming futuristic space industry dream of sending many more normal people into space in the coming years.
Why it’s important: Businesses and nations anticipate millions of people living and working in space without having to become professional, government-backed astronauts. These hopes go to SpaceX’s next manned mission, called Inspiration4.
- Previous launches have brought 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 a fully civilian mission can work aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft and apparently that space flight for all fans can work.
- Four crew members, Jared Isaacman, Sian Proctor, Chris Sembroki and Hayley Arceneaux, will launch the Falcon 9 rocket summit from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on September 15th.
- They will orbit the Earth for about three days, flying higher than the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope before entering the back of the Florida coast.
- During its mission, the crew will live in a close environment, look at the Earth and the stars, perform scientific experiments and monitor the performance of their spaceship while the mission controllers monitor it from the ground.
The overview: SpaceX wants space travel to one day be similar to air travel anyone who wants to can fly in orbit or in distant parts of space.
- “We would like to see aircraft as air operations, such as from a human space flight perspective, so this opportunity to make our first fully civilian commercial flight is amazing,” Benji Reed, director of human space flight, told me. of SpaceX.
Yes, but: Flying into space is nothing like flying on a commercial plane, at least not yet.
- This crew has taken months to train in U.S. locations to prepare for its launch and has dominated their lives since the full crew was announced in March.
- All four crew members have effectively obtained an intensive astronaut training course, spending time in simulators, studying series of notes on their own, and taking SpaceX questionnaires.
- While they may not be professionals, they certainly won’t be like a typical air passenger when they fly into space in September. Their training has effectively been a testament to the amount of pre-flight instruction that normal people will need to fly into orbit and how quickly this process can move forward.
How it works: The Inspiration4 crew was chosen through media more similar to reality TV than to the selection of professional astronauts.
- Isaacman wanted the mission to be entirely civil from the start and did not want to take some of his friends on the trip.
- Instead, he decided to add a fundraising component: raising $ 100 million for St. John’s Children’s Research Hospital. Jude, in addition to Isaacman’s $ 100 million donation, and open seats to complete strangers.
- S Memberski was chosen by drawing lots that anyone could enter. Proctor won his seat through a competition for entrepreneurs. Arceneaux, a childhood cancer survivor treated by St. Jude, who is now an assistant doctor at the hospital, was chosen by the charity to represent him in the space.
The summary: Inspiration4 is an old time for a teenage commercial space flight industry trying to bring many more people into space in the future.
In depth: Listen here to the first episode of the new season of How It Happened: The Upcoming Axios Astronauts.