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Instead of docking with the International Space Station (ISS) like SpaceX’s other crewed missions, the mission’s Crew Dragon spacecraft will remain in Earth orbit for three days under its own power. The limits of the Resilience spacecraft, which has about three times the internal volume of a large car. To keep them busy, the spacecraft’s docking port, which would normally be used to dock with the ISS, was converted into a spacecraft. glass dome, providing the crew with spectacular panoramic views of Earth and the universe beyond.

Beyond that, the mission’s objectives are limited. There are some scientific experiments planned, but the most notable aspect of the mission is what it will be. Negative be. Notably, none of the crew will pilot the spacecraft directly. Instead, it will be controlled autonomously and with the help of mission control on Earth. This is no trivial change, McDowell explains, and there are risks involved. “For the first time, if automated systems aren’t working, you can get in real trouble,” he says. “What this shows is increased reliance on software and automated control systems that allow you to fly tourists without an escort.”

All of this combines to make the launch of the Inspiration4 an exciting moment in human spaceflight, though it has been trialled before. Back in the 1980s, NASA had hoped to start something similar – the Space Flight Contributor Program, an effort that gave various private citizens the opportunity to fly into space on a space shuttle. “It felt like some astronauts were a little timid in their statements about flight,” says author Alan Ladwig, who runs the program. NASA wanted people who could better communicate the experience and chose a teacher, a journalist, and an artist.

But the program ended tragically. Its first participant, Christa McAuliffe, a teacher from New Hampshire, died along with six other crew members in the 1986 space shuttle Challenger explosion. The program was canceled and the space shuttle program as a whole stopped. Experts once predicted hundreds of missions would fly per year, but over the next 25 years, only 110 more launches took place until the shuttles were retired in 2011.

Much of space travel will continue to be the task of professional astronauts and, for the time being, the extremely wealthy. Unless you’re rich, you’ll still be limited to applying for contests or hoping for tickets from a wealthy philanthropist—perhaps not the glorious future of space travel that many envision.

But Inspiration4 shows that there are few and rare opportunities for more “regular” people to go into space. “It’s a milestone in human reach,” says space historian John Logsdon, emeritus professor at the George Washington University Space Policy Institute. “In a very simple sense, it means anyone can go. “You will not fly Pan Am The spaceplane is yet to head to a giant spinning space hotel, but who knows what the future may hold. “This is a brand new industry that is in its infancy and we are taking the first steps,” Forczyk says. “We don’t know how far it will go.”