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from: MARCIA DUNN, Associated Press
Posted: 09/15/2021 / 8:51 PM CDT
Updated: 09/15/2021 / 8:51 p.m. CDT
In this July 2, 2021 photo of John Kraus, from left, Sian Proctor, Chris Sembroski, Jared Isaacman and Hayley Arceneaux pose for a photo at Duke Health in Durham, NC during hypoxia training to understand how each Crew member in a low-oxygen environment. (John Kraus / Inspiration4 via AP)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – The four people on SpaceX’s first private flight are pretty common, down-to-earth guys who got together by chance.
You will circle the earth for three days at an unusually high altitude – alone without a professional escort – before splashing off the coast of Florida.
Meet the crew who are taking space tourism to new heights after launching Wednesday night from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center:
JARED ISAACMAN, SPONSOR
Isaacman got rich with the payment processing business he opened in his parents’ basement after dropping out of high school. He later attended an aviation university, took to the skies in fighter jets, and founded Draken International to offer military training in tactical aircraft. Space waved, and the Easton, Pennsylvania entrepreneur bought an entire flight from SpaceX to orbit the earth. The 38-year-old thinks air shows, his second hobby, are much more dangerous. “I don’t consider myself a risk-taker or a thrill seeker,” says Isaacman, whose daughters are 7 and 5 tie it with a very rewarding cause. “This time it’s the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Isaacman pledged $ 100 million to St. Jude and is asking for an additional $ 100 million in public donations. To underline the message that there is room for “just ordinary people,” Isaacman offered St. Jude one of the four capsule seats and raffled the other two.
HAYLEY ARCENEAUX, ST. JUDES REP
Arceneaux, now a medical assistant at St. Jude, was a bone cancer patient at the Memphis, Tennessee Hospital when she was 10 years old. To save her left leg, St. Jude replaced her knee and part of her femur and implanted a titanium rod. She is the first person to go into space with a prosthesis and, at 29, the youngest American woman. She was St. Jude’s election in January to represent the hospital in space. Arceneaux kept up with fellow travelers in training, even as she trudged up Mount Rainier in Washington in the snow. Their only compromise: SpaceX adjusted their capsule seat to relieve knee pain. “I’m very excited to open space travel to so many, so many different types of people who are not physically perfect,” says Arceneaux. She will chat with St. Jude patients from orbit and remind them that their dreams can come true too. She took her late father’s St. Jude tie, a precious possession. “I’m so grateful for my path with cancer because it gave me the love of life, just the joy of life and the confidence to say ‘yes’ to opportunities,” she says. “This is the greatest honor of my life.”
CHRIS SEMBROSKI, WINNER OF THE COMPETITIONS
Sembroski, an Air Force veteran and data engineer for Lockheed Martin in Everett, Washington, always saw himself as a behind-the-scenes space booster who helps educate the public. He shot down model rockets in college and worked as a space camp advisor. So he thought it was a “crazy fantasy” when he saw the Super Bowl ad in February announcing the raffle prize draw and made a donation to go. He didn’t win, but a college friend won and he offered Sembroski his place on the flight. Sembroski says he was more subdued than others when he found out: “Words just couldn’t come out. Since then I’ve become much more enthusiastic. ”After six months of training, 42-year-old Sembroski has“ no worries, no worries, maybe a bit of stage fright ”about singing and playing a ukulele in orbit that is being auctioned off to support St. Jude . His teacher Erin is “more than concerned for both of us”. They have two daughters aged 3 and 9. Sembroski says he will reflect on the historical nature of the flight – and its role in it – once he is back on Earth.
SIAN PROCTOR, BUSINESS WINNER
Proctor applied to NASA three times to be an astronaut. The 51-year-old geologist and community college professor from Tempe, Arizona, even made it to the finals more than a decade ago. After meeting with NASA, she turned her attention to private space travel. But when 2021 emerged, she thought she was getting old – until she found out about Isaacman’s space raffle for his customers. When the coronavirus pandemic hit, she had started creating space-themed artwork and turned to Isaacman’s Shift4 company to sell her paintings. When asked on the eve of the launch if she was nervous, she said her only worry was that “this moment would never come in my life”. As only the fourth Black woman in space after three NASA astronauts, Proctor hopes to inspire other minority women. “As we move to the Moon and Mars and beyond, we are writing the human spaceflight narrative,” focusing on diversity, says Proctor. “We’re on Starship Earth and want to take everyone with us.” She was infected with the space virus at an early age: her late father worked at NASA’s tracking station in Guam during the Apollo moon landing.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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