Elon Musk’s SpaceX Announces Its First Civilian Space Mission
Elon Musk’s SpaceX Announces Its First Civilian Space Mission. SpaceX announced its plans of launching four private citizens on a Crew Dragon capsule into orbit around the Earth later this year; the mission is dubbed ‘the world’s first all-civilian mission.’ The company’s spacecraft will be commanded by Jared Isaacman, the founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments. “I appreciate this tremendous responsibility that comes with commanding this mission and I want to use this historic moment to inspire humanity while helping to end childhood cancer here on Earth,” said Isaacman in a statement.
The mission, known as Inspiration4, seeks to raise support for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Two seats were given to St. Jude, with one going “to a frontline healthcare worker” and the other to the winner of a competition between people who donate to a fundraiser for St. Jude. The St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, founded in 1962, is a pediatric treatment and research facility focused on children’s catastrophic diseases, particularly leukemia and other cancers. The hospital costs about US$2.8 million a day to run, but patients are not charged for their care.
“When you’ve got a brand new mode of transportation, you have to have pioneers. Things are expensive at first, and as you’re able to increase the launch rate, increase the production rate, refine the technology, it becomes less expensive and accessible to more people.” SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk told NBC News’ Tom Costello in an interview with NBC Nightly News.
Civilians have flown to space before, but these space tourists typically paid to hitch rides into orbit alongside trained NASA astronauts or Russian cosmonauts. This mission will be the first time a crew made up entirely of civilians will venture into space. SpaceX will provide the crew members with training that will prepare them for the mission, this training will include mission simulations for emergency readiness and how to deal with orbital mechanics during the mission.
“It’s like when America went to the moon in ’69 — it wasn’t just a few people, humanity went to the moon, we all went there with them. And I think it’s something similar here.” Musk added.
