Elon Musk sent tourists to Earth's orbit for three days: how they live in space - ForumDaily
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Elon Musk sent tourists to Earth orbit for three days: how they live in space

Elon Musk's company SpaceX has sent four "amateur astronauts" into orbit. They went into space in the Dragon capsule. This gave a new round of space tourism. The details of the event were shared by the publication with the BBC.

Photo: Shutterstock

This mission, following the recent flights of businessmen Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos, will mark the next step towards opening up space for those who can afford it.

Dragon launched the Falcon-9 launch vehicle, the brainchild of Elon Musk's SpaceX, into orbit. The launch took place on September 16 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and was broadcast on the SpaceX website.

Approximately three minutes after launch, the first stage of the launch vehicle separated and landed on the floating platform Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic Ocean. A few minutes later, Dragon separated from the second stage and entered an orbit with an altitude of 575 km.

After that, the astronauts were able to see the Earth through the transparent dome. This porthole dome, located under the nose cone, replaces the airlock commonly used on Dragon to dock with the ISS. However, there will be no docking this time, so no gateway is needed.

Tourists will spend the next three days in orbit. At the end of the mission, the capsule should splash down in the Atlantic Ocean.

Who paid for the flight

The American space agency NASA, which has always ordered flights of American astronauts on SpaceX ships, this time has nothing to do with the mission.

The flight was paid for by American billionaire Jared Isaacman, who led the crew of three. It is not reported how much money he had to part with, but today space flights are a very, very expensive pleasure.

On the subject: Want internet from Elon Musk: you can already pre-order it on the SpaceX website

Isaacman joined health worker Hayley Arseno, science popularizer Sian Proctor and information analyst Chris Sembroski on the three-day orbital journey.

They hope to inspire others to go into space and raise money for childhood cancer research. The mission was called Inspiration4 (inspiration - “inspiration”).

How is the flight

The spacecraft reached an altitude of 575 km, that is, 150 km above the orbit of the ISS. Astronauts will conduct a series of experiments in space and observe the Earth.

They are confident that they are opening a new era of space travel “for everyone”.

Who are these four astronauts?

The ship's commander, 38-year-old Jared Isaacman, is a successful businessman and chief executive of the electronic payments company Shift4 Payments, which he founded as a teenager; his net worth is estimated at approximately $2,5 billion. Jared is a huge aviation enthusiast and has thousands of hours of flying time on different types of aircraft. Having paid for this mission, he nevertheless believes that space should be accessible to everyone.

“This will be the first time that people are launched into orbit by someone other than a global superpower,” Isaacman said before the flight. “And I think this flight will be a harbinger of the future.” We know that someday, in 50 or 100 years, there will be a lunar base and, quite possibly, a Martian settlement. And it all has to start somewhere.”

“When this mission is completed, many will say: this was the first time ordinary people went into space,” the businessman said.

Inspiration4 will not only make a full-fledged orbital flight (the ships of Branson and Bezos only formally went into space, barely leaving the earth's atmosphere), but also perform a specific task. According to Isaacman, he knew from the beginning that it would not be a "regular fishing trip with friends": the flight must have a specific purpose.

The businessman recruited three people to his team, whom he had not previously met.

Haley Arceneaux, 29, is a graduate student at St. Jude Thaddeus Children's Hospital in Memphis, considered the world's largest cancer research center. She herself underwent treatment at this clinic at the age of 10. The goal of the expedition is to raise $200 million for this hospital, so Isaacman decided that it would be natural if the crew included an employee of this clinic. “It seems that I am the first person in the world who received a phone call and said: would you like to fly into space?” Haley Arsenault laughs.

Dr. Sian Proctor is 51 years old. She is a geologist and popularizer of a science that nearly became a NASA astronaut in 2009, but did not make it past the last qualifying round. However, the commander took her to the team because of her entrepreneurial skills.

Chris Sembroski, 42, is a U.S. Air Force veteran who works as an engineer for the aerospace company Lockheed Martin. He made a donation to St. Jude Children's Hospital and was automatically entered into a lottery for a fourth crew member. But Sembroski did not get the lucky ticket, but his friend was lucky, who won and gave Chris his place in the cabin of the spaceship.

Why is it important

In just 60 years that have passed since the first flight of the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, a total of about 600 people have visited space. Most of them were the military, who carried out assignments (often secret) of their governments.

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But Inspiration4's mission is a completely different matter. This is a completely commercial orbital flight operated by private civilians.

Just six months ago, Isaacman, Arsenault, Proctor and Sembroski were living their normal lives, but overnight everything changed - they took a crash course in astronaut training and worked out on a SpaceX simulator, which replicates the orbital capsule in detail.

SpaceX plans to continue to carry out commercial orbital flights, not limited to the requests of traditional space agencies.

For example, Axiom Space (a startup from Texas) has already paid for four Dragon flights. It should deliver the next space tourists to the ISS.

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