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Associated Press

For the first time in 60 years of human space flight, a rocket is poised to blast into orbit with no professional astronauts on board, only four tourists.
SpaceX’s first private flight will be led by a 38-year-old entrepreneur who’s bankrolling the entire trip. He’s taking two sweepstakes winners with him on the three-day, round-the-world trip, along with a health care worker who survived childhood cancer.
They’ll ride alone in a fully automated Dragon capsule, the same kind that SpaceX uses to send astronauts to and from the International Space Station for Nasa. But the chartered flight won’t be going there.
Set to launch Wednesday night from Kennedy Space Centre, the two men and two women will soar 160km (100 miles) higher than the space station, aiming for an altitude of 575km, just above the current position of the Hubble Space Telescope.
SpaceX all-civilian crew to boldly go where none has gone before
By contrast, Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson and Blue Origin’s Jeff Bezos briefly skimmed space during their short rides in July – Branson reached 86km while Bezos hit 106km up.
As the private flight’s benefactor, Jared Isaacman, sees it: “This is the first step toward a world where everyday people can go and venture among the stars”.
Here’s a look at the space flight, dubbed Inspiration4:

Billionaire’s quest
Isaacman’s idea of fun is flying fighter jets and keeping up with the Air Force Thunderbirds. He quit high school and started his own payment-processing company, Shift4 Payments in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He segued into aviation, founding Draken International for tactical aircraft training. While he won’t divulge what he’s paying for the flight, Isaacman acknowledges the “worthwhile debates” over whether the wealthy should spend their fortunes fixing problems on Earth, versus sightseeing in space. But he contends investing in space now will lower costs in the future. “Because it’s so expensive, space has been the exclusive domain of world superpowers and the elite that they select,” he said. “It just shouldn’t stay that way.” When he announced the flight in February, he pledged US$100 million to St Jude Children’s Research Hospital and aims to raise another US$100 million in donations.
SpaceX rocket carrying baby squid and ‘water bears’ takes off for ISS
Luck of the draw
Isaacman offered one of the four capsule seats to St Jude, which offered it to doctor assistant Hayley Arceneaux, a former patient who now works at the Memphis, Tennessee, hospital. Now 29, Arceneaux was 10 when diagnosed with bone cancer, and had much of her left thigh bone replaced with a titanium rod. She’ll be the first person in space with a prosthesis, proud to pave the way for “those who aren’t physically perfect”. She’ll also be the youngest American in space, beating the late Sally Ride, who became the first American woman in space in 1983 at age 32. Contest winners claimed the final two seats. Sian Proctor, 51, a community college educator in Tempe, Arizona, and former geology instructor, beat out 200 other Shift4 Payments clients with her space-themed artwork business. Also a pilot, she was a Nasa astronaut finalist more than a decade ago. Chris Sembroski, 42, a data engineer and former US Air Force missileman from Everett, Washington, entered an open lottery by donating to St Jude. He didn’t win, but a friend from his college days did and gave him the slot.

Training like astronauts
It’s been a whirlwind since all four came together in March. They hiked up Washington’s Mount Rainier in the snow, sampled brief bursts of weightlessness aboard modified aircraft and took intense, rapid spins in fighter jets and centrifuges. “I know that my prosthesis can now handle 8 G’s of force,” Arceneaux said. Her only compromise: SpaceX had to adjust her capsule seat to relieve pain in that knee. Although the capsule is fully automated, the four spent time in the SpaceX capsule simulator rehearsing launch, re-entry and other critical operations. “We definitely had some Apollo 13-like simulation rides home where virtually everything was broken, and everybody made it back. So I think we passed all the tests,” Isaacson said. While acknowledging the risks, the four are impressed with SpaceX’s focus on safety and reusability. But Sembroski said his wife, a schoolteacher, will hold off celebrating until splashdown.
SpaceX successfully lands Starship rocket on fifth try
Private vs Nasa mission
This is SpaceX’s first private flight and the company is running the show – Nasa isn’t involved. So SpaceX is providing its own facilities for private passengers to sleep, eat and hang out before launch, and to get into their white-with-black-trim flight suits. The leased launch pad used by SpaceX is the same one used by Apollo moonwalkers, shuttle astronauts and all three previous Nasa crews. And at mission’s end, they’ll splash down off the Florida coast just like their predecessors. The pandemic is again limiting spectators: St Jude is scaling back its launch delegation, with actor Marlo Thomas, whose father Danny Thomas, founded St Jude, cancelling her trip to Florida with husband, talk show host Phil Donahue.
Three days aloft
Isaacman and SpaceX settled on three days as the sweet spot for orbiting the Earth. It gives him and his fellow passengers plenty of time to take in the views through a custom bubble-shaped window, take blood samples and conduct other medical research, and drum up interest for auction items to benefit the hospital. While roomy for a capsule, the Dragon offers virtually no privacy; only a curtain shields the toilet. Unlike the space station and Nasa’s old shuttles, there is no galley or sleeping compartments, or even separate work areas. As for food, they’ll chow down on cold pizza following lift-off. They’re also packing ready-to-eat, astronaut-style fare.
Mars rocks collected by Perseverance rover boost case for alien life
Space tourism on the rise
Space tourism has never been hotter. Branson and Bezos rode their companies’ rockets into space to fulfil lifelong dreams but also advance ticket sales. Too busy to launch himself, SpaceX founder Elon Musk has two tourist flights to the space station coming up in the next year – the first as early as January – and also a private moon shot in the works. The businessmen shelling out US$55 million apiece to fly SpaceX to the space station won’t be the first to pay their own way there. Seven wealthy clients of Virginia-based Space Adventures rode Russian rockets to the space station from 2000 to 2009. Isaacman travelled to Kazakhstan in 2008 to watch one of them soar: Richard Garriott, the video game-developing son of the late Nasa astronaut Owen Garriott. While once opposed to space tourism, Nasa is rooting for these newcomers. “I can’t wait for them to fly and fly safely and fly often,” said Nasa’s commercial space flight director, Phil McAlister.


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SpaceX

Things to know about SpaceX’s private flight into Earth’s orbit

The four passengers are supposed to embody the opening-up of space to everyone, giving the mission its name: Inspiration4. Photo: SpaceX

(FILES) In this file photo taken on February 02, 2021 Inspiration4 mission commander Jared Isaacman, founder and chief executive officer of Shift4 Payments, stands for a portrait in front of the recovered first stage of a Falcon 9 rocket at Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) in Hawthorne, California. - The Inspiration4 mission, which will be the first to send only civilians into space for several days aboard a SpaceX rocket, will be available to watch in "near real time" in a documentary series on Netflix, the streaming platform announced on August 19, 2021. (Photo by Patrick T. FALLON / AFP)

Overview of SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. August 27, 2021. Satellite image copyright 2021 Maxar Technologies/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES. DO NOT OBSCURE LOGO.

Jeff Bezos, Earth’s richest person, blasts into space: ‘Best day ever!’

The New Shepard rocket blasts off near Van Horn, Texas on July 20, 2021. Photo: Reuters

July 19, 2021: Jeff Bezos and three other passengers are set to launch to the edge of space on the morning of July 20th aboard his company Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket. PICTURED: April 5, 2017, Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA : JEFF BEZOS at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs in 2017. (Credit Image: Chuck Bigger/Space Symposium via ZUMA Press Wire

Billionaire businessman Jeff Bezos and pioneering female aviator Wally Funk emerge from their capsule after their flight aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket on the world's first unpiloted suborbital flight near Van Horn, Texas, U.S., July 20, 2021 in a still image from video. Blue Origin/Handout via REUTERS. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES. THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY.

epa09355022 A handout photo made available by Blue Origin shows Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin New Shepard lifting off with Jeff Bezos, Mark Bezos, Wally Funk and Oliver Daemen aboard for a trip into space from Launch Site One, Texas, USA, 20 July 2021. EPA-EFE/BLUE ORIGIN / HANDOUT HANDOUT EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES

HANDOUT - 19 July 2021, US, Texas: An undated handout photo of Jeff Bezos, along with his Blue Origin crew members. Bezos and three other passengers are set to launch to the edge of space on the morning of 20 of July aboard his company Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket. Photo: -/Blue Origin via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa - ATTENTION: editorial use only and only if the credit mentioned above is referenced in full

So you want to be a space tourist like Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson and Elon Musk? You’ll need patience and a lot of money

FILE PHOTO: Billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson wears his astronaut’s wings at a news conference, after flying with a crew in Virgin Galactic’s passenger rocket plane VSS Unity to the edge of space at Spaceport America near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, U.S., July 11, 2021. REUTERS/Joe Skipper/File Photo

Sir Richard Branson (left) and other crew members attain zero gravity during their Virgin Galactic space flight. Photo: EPA-EFE

Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos. Photo: Reuters

Oliver Daemen (left) and Wally Funk. Photo: AFP

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa will travel in a Russian Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station in December. Photo: Getty Images

Virgin Galactic’s passenger rocket plane VSS Unity. Photo: Reuters

Branson carries crew member Sirisha Bandla on his shoulders after their flight into space. Photo: Reuters

A mural displaying brothers Mark (left) and Jeff Bezos, in Van Horn, Texas, before the launch of Blue Origin’s inaugural flight to the edge of space. Photo: Reuters

Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson makes historic space flight

Virgin Galactic's passenger rocket plane VSS Unity, carrying Richard Branson and crew, begins its ascent to the edge of space. Photo: Reuters

Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson, drinks champagne with crew members after flying into space aboard a Virgin Galactic vessel, a voyage he described as the "experience of a lifetime" -- and one he hopes will usher in an era of lucrative space tourism. Spaceport America, near Truth and Consequences, New Mexico on July 11, 2021. - "Congratulations to all our wonderful team at Virgin Galactic for 17 years of hard, hard work to get us this far," he said during a live feed as the VSS Unity spaceship glided back to Spaceport America in New Mexico.It reached a peak altitude of around 53 miles (85 kilometers) -- beyond the boundary of space, according to the United States -- allowing the passengers to experience weightlessness and admire the Earth's curvature.The trip proceeded without drama, and touchdown occurred at around 9:40 am Mountain Time (1540 GMT), about an hour after take-off. (Photo by Patrick T. FALLON / AFP)

The Unity22 crew at zero gravity. British billionaire Richard Branson, along with five other Virgin Galactic employees launched to suborbital space Sunday July 11, 2021, on the company's first flight with a full crew aboard. (Virgin Galactic/TNS)

Virgin Galactic's passenger rocket plane VSS Unity, borne by twin-fuselage carrier jet dubbed VMS Eve, takes off with billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson and his crew for travel to the edge of space at Spaceport America near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, U.S., July 11, 2021. REUTERS/Joe Skipper TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

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SpaceX set to launch four people into space Wednesday on a three-day mission
It would be the first to orbit the Earth with exclusively private citizens on board


SpaceX is set to launch four people into space on a three-day mission that is the first to orbit the Earth with exclusively private citizens on board.


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Explainer | Things to know about SpaceX’s private flight into Earth’s orbit

SpaceX set to launch four people into space Wednesday on a three-day mission It would be the first to orbit the Earth with exclusively private citizens on board

SpaceX set to launch four people into space Wednesday on a three-day mission

It would be the first to orbit the Earth with exclusively private citizens on board