A historic moment for the space program, and one that we could consider hinge in terms of access to space for thousands of people in the coming years.
The Inspiration 4 mission was born thanks to the intention of the billionaire Jared Isaacman, CEO of the company Shop4Payments and known stunt pilot, to reach space. He decided to approach SpaceX and literally buy a mission from Elon Musk’s company.
Isaacman would be the commander of the same, but decided to do something quite particular with the remaining three seats of the capsule in order to make donations and raise awareness of the work done by the well-known Saint Jude hospital, famous for its fight against cancer in children. I would name the three seats, Hope, Prosperity and Gratitude, pillars of the mission.
The Hope seat was assigned to Hayley Arceneaux, who currently works as a medical assistant at the same St. Louis hospital. Jude. Hayley is a survivor of cancer, a disease she suffered when she was 10 years old. Today, now recovered, you will have the opportunity of a lifetime to fly into space.
Inspiration4 takeoff. Photo: Manuel Mazzanti
Areceneax is the only one of the crew who speaks Spanish and when Debate asked her if she would send a Spanish-language tableware during the mission she replied that she would be happy to do so.
The Prosperity seat was assigned to Dr. Siam Proctor, a geologist and communicator. Proctor managed to be assigned to the mission after setting up her online art business, using the Shift4Payment system and making donations to St. John’s Hospital. Jude.
Siam Proctor is no stranger to the space program, her father worked on the Apollo project and she herself became a finalist in the NASA astronaut selection in 2009.
Finally the Generosity seat would be allocated to the winner of a lottery among all the people who made donations directly to the Saint Jude hospital website.
Inspiration4 takeoff. Photo: Manuel Mazzanti
Chris Sembroski would not win the lottery, but a friend of his who decided not to fly and left his place to Sembroski, aeronautical engineer and current employee of the company Lockheed Martin, in addition to being a veteran of the Air Force, performing maintenance on intercontinental missiles Minuteman III.
The mission will be in orbit for three days, where the crew will perform various scientific experiments, ranging from ultra sounds to blood collection and analysis.
One peculiarity that this mission will have, which is not going to dock with the Space Station, is that this Dragon capsule will have a glass dome under its cone. Specially prepared by SpaceX, it is the largest one-piece dome (and window) ever to reach orbit.
Nebula between First Stage and Second stage. Photo: SpaceX / Inspiration4
The mission will end with a scheduled landing on the shores of the Altantico, but the location of the” splashdown ” will depend on the prevailing weather conditions at the time of return.
In order to collect more donations, the mission will also launch an auction of up to 50 works of art that will be auctioned during the mission in the form of NFTS (Non fungible Tokens).
Undoubtedly a historic mission that will undoubtedly mark the beginning of a new era in space travel.
Email: ben@satprwire.com Phone: +44 20 4732 1985
Ben has been listening to the technology news for quite some time that he needs just a single read to get an idea surrounding the topic. Ben is our go-to choice for in-depth reviews as well as the normal articles we cover on a normal basis.
