Imagine getting a call saying that if you want, you can join the rare group of less than a thousand humans who’ve not only visited space, but orbited this planet. Oh, and the mission blasts off in about six months.
That’s the call three Americans received earlier this year. And the offer wasn’t for the type of 15-minute joyride to the edge of space we saw from Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic recently. We’re talking about a three-day sojourn in orbit, the sort of thing that NASA astronauts dedicate their entire lives to preparing for.
Sure, civilians have flown to the International Space Station before, but it typically required a personal fortune, a little influence and months or even years of training. The idea of plucking people from obscurity, Wonka-style, and sending them into orbit has been the stuff of science fiction. Until now.
As I write this, physician’s assistant Hayley Arceneaux and data engineer Chris Sembroski, both of whom had zero reason as of a year ago to expect they’d ever visit space, are whipping around this planet roughly every 90 minutes. They’re joined by billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman and geologist Sian Proctor, who both have experience as pilots but no spaceflight experience.
The quartet makes up the entirety of the crew of the Inspiration4 mission, now in low Earth orbit. There is no professional astronaut chaperone from NASA on board, just four space novices cruising above Earth, performing research and making history. The mission is also billed as a fundraiser for St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, where Arceneaux was a patient as a child and now works as a medical professional. This is all bankrolled by Isaacman and possible thanks to SpaceX and its autonomous Crew Dragon spacecraft, the first new crewed spaceship (outside of China) that we’ve seen since the space shuttle made its debut decades ago. For space fanatics, this is a big deal, but several billion other humans can be forgiven for wondering why it matters that yet another wealthy person has financed a trip to space and invited a few randos to ride along.
Inspiration for who?
First, it’s important to remember that new methods of transport have typically gone through the same process — trains and planes were elite experiences at the start and went on to revolutionize our lives.
(Sci Tech Daily)
This suggests the Inspiration4 crew could be just the first of many regular people to go to orbit or beyond. (SpaceX didn’t respond to a request for comment.)
Elon Musk has suggested his next-generation Starship could eventually be used for super quick international flights via orbit, possibly with less of a carbon footprint than current commercial jetliners.
Inspiration4 lays the groundwork for the idea of making it to orbit as a passive passenger and opening up space for transportation and other possible uses.
If you believe, as I do, that expanding humanity’s footprint beyond our planet is likely to improve life on our planet, Inspiration4 is an important milestone on that generations-long journey. (Sci Tech Daily)