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Three rookie astronauts on the Crew-3 mission, prepared by SpaceX for NASA, were launched into space for the first time. According to a tally maintained by NASA, they put the number of people in space at over 600.
Matthias Maurer, a mission specialist for Crew-3 and a German astronaut representing the European Space Agency, will be officially considered the 600th person in space. Superiority was determined by the crew’s mission specialist assignment order: Raja Chari, a NASA astronaut and commander of Crew-3, will be number 599; Mr. Maurer has been assigned as mission expert 1 and Kayla Barron, another NASA astronaut, has been assigned as mission expert 2.
“I actually offered this place to Kayla because I think she and I will be together like number 600,” Mr. Maurer said at a press conference.
“I was the lucky one to get the round number, but okay, we’re all going to have fun in space,” he joked.
The calculation began in 1961 when Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit Earth. Less than a month later, Alan Shepard became the second person in space and the first US astronaut.
The number of people traveling to space has increased in recent years, and the pace is only expected to accelerate as a market for private spaceflight missions with wealthy tourists takes shape. Tally includes short suborbital flights, for example Blue Origin launch featuring Jeff Bezos in July, the founder and former CEO of Amazon, to the edge of space with three other passengers.
Between blue origin, Virgin Galactic, Space X and maybe balloons traveling to suborbital altitudes, wealthy people are increasing their options to travel to space. China’s Tiangong space stationUnder construction in orbit and expected to be completed in 2022, it could open the orbit for even more astronauts.
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