On board there was pasta, sweets and a phone call with Tom Cruise: Now the four space tourists: inside the SpaceX mission “Inspiration4” have landed back on earth.
Cape Canaveral – Three days in space: This is what four space tourists from the US space company SpaceX experienced. Now they are safely back on earth. The “Crew Dragon” space capsule watered down on Saturday (September 18, 2021) shortly after 7:00 p.m. (local time) in the Atlantic off the coast of Florida, as was shown on a live video broadcast by the company. A SpaceX ship received the four US passengers inside, who waved and stepped out of the capsule with big smiles.
They were then flown to the Kennedy Space Center by helicopter. From there the crew took off into space on Thursday morning. The extraordinary thing about the mission: the space capsule had flown without a professional astronaut: inside on board, it flowed largely automatically and remained in orbit for three days. At an altitude of around 575 kilometers, it circled the earth more than 15 times a day – so it floated a little higher than the International Space Station (ISS). The spacecraft needed around 90 minutes to travel around the earth at around 30,000 kilometers per hour.
“Inspiration4” from SpaceX: “Welcome to the second space age”
“It’s been an amazing journey for all of us, but it’s only really getting started now,” said billionaire Jared Isaacman shortly after the splashdown. He later added on Twitter: “We loved space, but it’s great to be home again!” In addition to Isaacman, who chartered the flight, three other fellow travelers were selected in a competition for the mission “Inspiration4” .
After surviving cancer as a child, 29-year-old Aztec helper Hayley Arceneaux became the youngest American woman to fly in orbit. Chris Sembroski, 42, is a US Air Force veteran and Sian Proctor, 51, is a geoscientist who was nearly selected as a NASA astronaut in 2009. “Best flight of my life!” Wrote Proctor on Twitter.
“Welcome to the second space age,” said mission leader Todd Ericson at a post-landing press conference. With the successful completion of the mission, “space travel will become much more accessible for the average man and woman”.
Netflix shoots a documentary about tourist flights from SpaceX
“Congratulations, Inspiration4 !!!” wrote SpaceX founder Elon Musk on Twitter. During the trip, the heart rate, blood oxygen levels and cognitive abilities of the four travelers were monitored in order to study the effects of space on laypeople.
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One goal of the mission was to collect donations equivalent to around 170 million euros for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. Arceneaux was treated as a child in the facility in the US state of Tennessee and now works there as a medical assistant.
The passengers: Inside took various items such as a ukulele and hops for brewing space beer, which are now to be auctioned. During the all-excursion, which is also being documented on the streaming service Netflix, the four space travelers passed the time in the cramped capsule with conversations with actors Tom Cruise and Elon Musk, among others. They were also allowed to virtually ring the bell that gave the signal to stop trading on the New York Stock Exchange. In terms of food, the crew was supplied with much more effort than conventional and longer missions: In addition to coffee and tea, there were sandwiches, pasta with Bolognese sauce and a pile of sweets.
Next SpaceX flights for amateurs into space planned
SpaceX is already planning the next tourist flights into space. In fact, “the number of people who contact us through our sales and marketing portals has increased significantly,” said Benji Reed, head of the manned space programs at SpaceX. The next flight with three business people on board is therefore scheduled for January 2022.
In July, the British billionaire Richard Branson and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos flew into space with their private space companies Virgin Galactic and Blue Orgin. On behalf of the US space agency NASA, SpaceX had already brought ten astronauts to the ISS space station, but had not yet transported any space tourists. The “Inspiration4” mission went much further than the flights of Virgin Galactic and Blue Orgin, on which the travelers were only a few minutes in space. Neither billionaire Jared Isaacman nor SpaceX wanted to reveal how much the space flight cost. (tvd with AFP / dpa)
List of rubric lists: © Inspiration4 / dpa
