The crew of the first totally private orbital space mission will be carried out by four men ; no woman is part of this milestone. It’s about: Larry Connor, an American real estate and technology entrepreneur; Eytan Stibbe, businessman, and former Israeli fighter pilot; Mark Pathy, an investor, co-founder of Cirque du Soleil, and Canadian philanthropist; and Madrid-born American Miguel López-Alegría (known in NASA circles as Michael López-Alegría), a retired NASA astronaut who logged almost 260 days in four previous missions.
In short, they represent the second oldest person to launch into space ( Connor is 71 years old and is second only to the late John Glenn, who made his second space flight at the age of 77), the second Israeli in space ( Stibbe is 63 years old), the eleventh Canadian to fly into space (Pathy is 51 years old) and the first ex-NASA astronaut to return to the International Space Station (López-Alegría, who is 62 years old).
Axiom Space will thus launch its first privately funded and operated International Space Station (ISS) on the Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1) flight aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, which sent its first two crews to the ISS. last year, at a watershed moment for the space industry as companies compete to make space travel more accessible to private customers rather than governments.
The three clients will head with Commander López-Alegría, who went into space four times during his 20 years as a NASA astronaut, during which he also achieved the record for most spacewalks. He will serve as a pilot for the Crew Dragon , which SpaceX designed to fly autonomously, with human participation only necessary in emergency situations.
How much does the trip cost?
The mission will allow the crew to live aboard the orbital complex and experience at least eight days of microgravity as well as the spectacular views of the Earth that they will have the honor of contemplating from that privileged space balcony that is the Space Station. According to The Washington Post, each space tourist ticket costs $ 55 million.
The flight of the crew to the space station, an orbital laboratory about 400 kilometers above Earth, will take two days. They will then spend about eight days aboard the US segment of the station, where they will participate “in research and philanthropic projects,” Axiom said in a statement. Living alongside working astronauts from the US, Russia and probably Germany, private crew members will deploy sleeping bags somewhere on the station, as there is no accommodation for space tourists – at least, for the moment-.
NASA updated its policies in 2019 to allow private astronaut flights to the ISS as part of a broader push to foster business opportunities in space. Seven private citizens flew to the station as tourists on separate missions in the early 2000s aboard Russian Soyuz vehicles.
The Ax-1 mission, set to launch in 2022, will be the first in a series of flights to the space station, including one possibly manned by actor Tom Cruise and director Doug Liman.
Referencia: Axiom Space
