Billionaire buys multi-million dollar SpaceX flight and will take three people into orbit as part of firm’s first all-civilian trip to space
- SpaceX is set to conduct the first all-civilian mission to space later this year
- Jared Isaacman, founder of Shift4 Payments, has purchased the flight
- It will see him and three others soar into orbit aboard SpaceX’s Dragon craft
- One seat is going to a health care worker at St. Jude Hospital
- Another will be raffled off and those who donate to the hospital can enter
- The third seat is set for a business owner who uses Shift4 Payments
- The idea of the Inspiration4 mission is to raise $200 million for St. Jude
A US billionaire who made a fortune in tech and fighter jets is buying an entire SpaceX flight and plans to take three people with him to circle the globe this year.
Jared Isaacman is the founder of Shift4 Payments, a credit processing firm, is launching the Inspiration4 mission with the hopes of raising 200 million dollars for St. Jude Research Hospital, based in Tennessee, with half coming from his own pockets.
The four-person expedition will take off in SpaceX’s Dragon craft late this year from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and orbit around Earth – the length of the flight has yet to be revealed.
A St. Jude health care worker has already been selected and anyone donating to the hospital during February will be entered into a random draw for seat number three, and the fourth will go to a business owner who uses Shift4 Payments.
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Jared Isaacman (pictured) is the founder of Shift4 Payments, a credit processing firm, is launching the Inspiration4 mission with the hopes of raising 200 million dollars for St. Jude Research Hospital, based in Tennessee, with half coming from his own pockets
‘I truly want us to live in a world 50 or 100 years from now where people are jumping in their rockets like the Jetsons and there are families bouncing around on the moon with their kid in a spacesuit,’ said Isaacman.
‘I also think if we are going to live in that world, we better conquer childhood cancer along the way.’
Details of the ride in a SpaceX Dragon capsule are still being worked out, including the number of days the four will be in orbit after blasting off from Florida.
The Inspiration4 crew will not be going into space blind, but will receive commercial astronaut training by SpaceX on the Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft, orbital mechanics, operating in microgravity, zero gravity and other forms of stress testing before traveling into the last frontier.
The four-person expedition will take off in SpaceX’s Dragon craft late this year from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and orbit around Earth – the length of the flight has yet to be revealed
During the ‘multi-day’ journey, the crew will swing around Earth once every 90 minutes following a designated flight path and once complete, the capsule will re-enter the atmosphere and splash down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida
Following the announcement of SpaceX Founder and CEO Elon Musk told NBC News’ Tom Costello, ‘Any mission where there’s a crew onboard makes me nervous.’ He added, ‘The risk is not zero.’
‘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.’
‘We’ll all be with Jared on the journey and we’ll be seeing it in real time. It’s an important milestone on the road toward making access to space more affordable.’
During the ‘multi-day’ journey, the crew will swing around Earth once every 90 minutes following a designated flight path and once complete, the capsule will re-enter the atmosphere and splash down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida.
Although this is not the first time civilians have traveled to space, it is the first mission completely manned by average people and it is the latest private space travel announcement.
Just last month Aximo Space Aviation and SpaceX announced it will be sending three businessmen to the International Space Station – and each has paid $55 million for a seat.
Paying crew members Larry Conor, Mark Pathy and Eytan Stibbe, will be led on the mission by retired NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría, who has traveled to space four times and is now the vice president of Aximo Space.
A St. Jude health care worker has already been selected and anyone donating to the hospital during February will be entered into a random draw for seat number three, and the fourth will go to a business owner who uses Shift4 Payments
The mission is set for January 2021, which will send the three men and a retired astronaut aboard a SpaceX Dragon.
Isaacman would not divulge how much he is paying SpaceX, except to say that the anticipated donation to St Jude ‘vastly exceeds the cost of the mission’.
While a former NASA astronaut will accompany the three businessmen, Isaacman will serve as his own spacecraft commander.
The appeal, he said, is learning all about about SpaceX’s Dragon and Falcon 9 rocket.
While the capsules are designed to fly autonomously, a pilot can override the system in an emergency.
A ‘space geek’ since nursery age, Isaacman dropped out of high school when he was 16, then started a business in his parents’ basement that became the genesis for Shift4.
Just last month Aximo Space Aviation and SpaceX announced it will be sending three businessmen to the International Space Station – and each has paid $55 million for a seat. From left, Axiom crew members Eytan Stibbe, Michael Lopez-Alegria (retired astronaut leading the mission), Mark Pathy, and Larry Connor
He set a speed record flying around the world in 2009 while raising money for the Make-A-Wish program, and later established Draken International, the world’s largest private fleet of fighter jets.
His 100 million dollar (£73 million) commitment to St. Jude in Memphis is the largest by a single individual and one of the largest overall.
‘We’re pinching ourselves every single day,’ said Rick Shadyac, president of St Jude’s fundraising organisation.
Besides SpaceX training, Isaacman intends to take his crew on a mountain expedition to mimic his most uncomfortable experience so far — camping on the side of a mountain in bitter winter conditions.
‘We’re all going to get to know each other… really well before launch,’ he said.
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