Inspiration4 crew spoke to TOM CRUISE from their Crew Dragon module

‘Maverick, you can be our wingman anytime!’ SpaceX’s first all-civilian crew talked to TOM CRUISE from their Crew Dragon module – as the actor prepares for a potential visit to the International Space Station next year

  • Jared Isaacman, Hayley Arceneaux, Sian Proctor and Chris Sembroski launched into space early on Thursday morning on a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule 
  • The four civilians spent three days 360 miles above the Earth orbiting the planet
  • Few details of their time in orbit have been released as it was a private mission
  • Tom Cruise called them on Thursday, soon after they reached orbit to discuss their time in space and prepare for his own spaceflight expected in 2022 

Tom Cruise called for a chat with SpaceX’s first all-civilian crew while they were orbiting 360 miles above the Earth during a three day flight.

The four crew members, including billionaire Jared Isaacman, who funded the mission, were travelling in a specially outfitted SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule during the mission.

Cruise called in on Thursday, September 16, during their first day, and while no specific details have been revealed, the Inspiration4 Twitter account made reference to his Top Gun call sign, saying ‘Maverick, you can be our wingman anytime.’

The actor is in talks with NASA and SpaceX to make his own spaceflight next year, going to the International Space Station to film all or part of an unnamed movie.

The flight was part of a bid to raise $200 million (£146 million) for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, with $100 million donated by Isaacman and the rest coming from other donations, auctions and a media deal with Netflix.

Elon Musk, who saw the crew off on Thursday, announced he would personally donate $50 million (£36 million) to the fundraising efforts. 

Inspiration4 crew in in space. They are, from left, Jared Isaacman, Hayley Arceneaux, Chris Sembroski and Sian Proctor

Tom Cruise called the crew during their first day in orbit, and while nothing has been revealed of the conversation, the twitter account referenced his Top Gun callsign ‘Maverick’

Inspiration4 launched in the SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience on September 16 atop a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean just before midnight on September 18.

Thursday’s conversation with Tom Cruise, like the entire three-day flight, was private and so no details were released, with the discussion expected to form part of the next episode of a Netflix series on the first all civilian spaceflight. 

Each of the four civilians on Inspiration4 had a call sign: Jared Isaacman (Rook), Hayley Arcenaux (Nova), Dr Sian Proctor (Leo), and Chris Sembroski (Hanks).

Jared Isaacman, 38 

Issacman grew up in New Jersey and started dabbling in computer technical support and repair when he was just 14 years old.

Two years later, he was offered a full time position and dropped out of high school to take the job – he later earned a GED.

In 2005, Issacman founded a retail payment processing company named United Bank Card, which was later renamed Harbortouch, a point-of-sale payment company based in Pennsylvania.

He was the founding CEO and retained that role in 2015 with the company having ‘been profitable for over a decade. 

By 2020, the company had been renamed Shift4 Payments, Isaacman became the CEO, and the company was processing $200 billion in payments annually. 

Issacman piloted the craft and serve as spacecraft commander.

Hayley Arceneaux, 29 

Hayley Arceneaux, 29 

Arceneaux, who is from Tennessee, was the first winner of a seat aboard the craft, who will become the youngest American in space and the first to make the journey with a prosthesis.

At the age of 10, Arceneaux was treated for bone cancer and had surgery at St. Jude to replace her knee and get a titanium rod in her left thigh bone. 

She wants to show her young patients and other cancer survivors that ‘the sky is not even the limit anymore.’

Sian Proctor, 51

Sian Proctor, 51 

Proctor was revealed as a winner this past March.

She is an entrepreneur, educator, trained pilot and active voice in the space exploration community.

She was selected as the top entrant of an independently judged online business competition that attracted approximately 200 entries and was conducted by the eCommerce platform Shift4Shop.

And an independent panel of judges chose her space art website dubbed Space2inspire. 

Proctor, who studied geology, applied three times to NASA’s astronaut corps, coming close in 2009, and took part in simulated Mars missions in Hawaii. 

Chris Sembroski, 41 

Chris Sembroski, 41 

The last seat was awarded to Sembroski, who donated and entered the lottery but was not picked in the random drawing earlier this month — his friend was.

His friend declined to fly for personal reasons and offered the spot to Sembroski, who worked as a Space Camp counsellor in college and volunteered for space advocacy groups.

‘Just finding out that I’m going to space was an incredible, strange, surreal event,’ he said in March.

Sembroski served as the Mission Specialist and will help manage payload, science experiments, communications to mission control and more.

While it isn’t clear if the crew used his Top Gun callsign, Maverick, the Twitter account referenced it when sharing the news of the phone call. 

Cruise starred as Navy pilot Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell in the 1986 film ‘Top Gun.’ A sequel comes out next year.

SpaceX got the all-civilian crew into a 363-mile (585-kilometer) orbit following Wednesday night’s launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, 100 miles higher than the ISS.

The group, led by Jared Isaacman (pictured), who is also funding the trip, spent three days orbiting the planet, before returning to Earth on Saturday

RUSSIAN FILM CREW TO LAUNCH FOR ISS IN OCTOBER 

A Russian crew of two cosmonauts and two cinema professionals is set to take off for the International Space Station (ISS) early next month.

There, they will shoot the first movie in outer space, beating a Tom Cruise backed project, not scheduled to launch until 2022.

The four are scheduled to be launched on a Soyuz MS-19 craft on October 5 to be delivered to the station. 

‘This movie is built around a story of an ordinary person… a doctor who had nothing to do with space exploration and never thought about it is offered to travel to the ISS… and save a cosmonaut’s life,’ director and actor Klim Shipenko said. 

The professional cosmonauts in the crew will also be seen in the movie.

‘I won’t be starring in it but still I will need to figure out how a movie is produced in such an unusual place as outer space,’ said commander Anton Shkaplerov.

Lead actress Yulia Peresild said she has learned to be her own make-up artist and costume designer.

‘It will not be on the same level as on Earth, but we will do our best. We are ready for it,’ she said.

Director Shipenko, who is 1.9 meters (6 feet 2 inches) tall, said his height makes training inside the spacecraft – and the upcoming trip – not very comfortable.

But accommodations will be made in the future, he said, adding: ‘It is okay. I will fly now as it is, but when we do the sequel about travel to Mars, then they promise there will be a better seat.’ 

During their three days in orbit, leaving just after midnight on Thursday and splashing down just before midnight on Sunday, they completed 15 orbits per day. 

Until this all-amateur crew, relatively few NASA astronauts had soared that high. The most recent were the shuttle astronauts who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope over multiple flights in the 1990s and 2000s.

To enhance the views, SpaceX outfitted the Dragon capsule with a custom, bubble-shaped dome. Photos of them looking out this large window were posted online, otherwise little else had been publicly released of their first day in space.

Besides talking space with Cruise, the four capsule passengers chatted Thursday with young cancer patients. 

Hayley Arceneaux, a childhood cancer survivor, led the conversation from orbit with patients from the hospital that saved her life almost 20 years ago: St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. 

A six-year-old-boy wanted to know if there are cows on the moon – like in the nursery rhyme.

‘I hope there will be one day. Right now, no, there aren’t,’ replied another passenger, Sian Proctor. ‘We´re going to go back to the moon soon and we´re going to investigate all kinds of things about it.’

The video linkup was not broadcast live, but shared by St. Jude on Friday. Seeing the Earth from so high is ‘so beautiful,’ Arceneaux told them.

Now a physician assistant at St. Jude, Arceneaux is the youngest American in space at age 29.

Pennsylvania entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, 38, purchased the entire flight for an undisclosed amount. He’s seeking to raise $200 million for St. Jude through the flight he’s named Inspiration4, half of that coming from his own pocket.

Elon Musk, who saw off the crew, also donated $50 million towards the $200 million fund, and other revenue has come from deals with Netflix and commercial partners. 

The two other Dragon riders won their seats through a pair of contests sponsored by Isaacman: Chris Sembroski, 42, a data engineer, and Proctor, 51, a community college educator. 

Inspiration4 launched in the SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience on September 16 atop a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean just before midnight on September 18

In this photo provided by Inspiration4, Elon Musk, front center, poses with the all-amateur crew before departure

During the broadcast Friday afternoon, Sembroski played a ukulele that will be auctioned off for St. Jude. 

‘You can turn your volume down if you wish, but I’ll give it a shot,’ he said.

Proctor, who is an artist, showed off a drawing in her sketchbook of a Dragon capsule being carried by a mythological dragon away from Earth.

All four share SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s quest to open space to everyone.

‘Missions like Inspiration4 help advance spaceflight to enable ultimately anyone to go to orbit & beyond,’ Musk tweeted Thursday after chatting with his orbiting pioneers.

SPACEX CREW DRAGON CAPSULE MEASURES 20FT AND CAN CARRY 7 ASTRONAUTS AT A TIME

The March 2 test, the first launch of U.S. astronauts from U.S. soil in eight years, will inform the system design and operations (Artist’s impression)

The capsule measures about 20 feet tall by 12 feet in diameter, and will carry up to 7 astronauts at a time. 

The Crew Dragon features an advanced emergency escape system (which was tested earlier this year) to swiftly carry astronauts to safety if something were to go wrong, experiencing about the same G-forces as a ride at Disneyland. 

It also has an Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) that provides a comfortable and safe environment for crew members. 

Crew Dragon’s displays will provide real-time information on the state of the spacecraft’s capabilities, showing everything from Dragon’s position in space, to possible destinations, to the environment on board.  

Those CRS-2 Dragon missions will use ‘propulsive’ landings, where the capsule lands on a landing pad using its SuperDraco thrusters rather than splashing down in the ocean. 

 That will allow NASA faster access to the cargo returned by those spacecraft, and also build up experience for propulsive landings of crewed Dragon spacecraft.

Source: Read Full Article

Previous post Priti Patel warned of 'limited' evidence migrant crackdown will work
Next post N.Korea warns U.S. risks 'dangerous nuclear arms race' over Australia subs