[ad_1]
Inspiration4, the last orbital tourist flight launched from the United States, was chartered by billionaire Jared Isaacman, who decided to offer deals to three people who could never afford travel for themselves. In turn, each of Axiom’s space travelers pays their own way.
-
Larry Connor, managing partner of the Connor Group, which owns and operates luxury apartments in Dayton, Ohio;
-
Mark Pathy, CEO of Mavrik Corporation, a Canadian investment company;
-
And Eytan Stibbe, an investor and former Israeli Air Force pilot.
The three of them did not know each other before.
Derek Hassmann, Axiom’s director of operations, said that while professional Russian astronauts accompany the special passengers who have previously traveled to the space station, the Axiom-1 mission is “very different in that the entire crew is not affiliated with any government.”
The space station expedition will be commanded by Michael López-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut who is currently vice president at Axiom. Mr. López-Alegría flew on three space shuttle missions and then served as space station commander from September 2006 to April 2007.
“When I left NASA 10 years ago, I became a very strong advocate and believer in commercial spaceflight in general and commercial human spaceflight in particular,” Mr. López-Alegría said at a press conference last month.
Mr. Connor’s previous exploits include: a journey in deep sea divers into the deepest parts of the Pacific Ocean, 35,000 feet below the surface in the Mariana Trench; aerobatic flying competitions; and climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.
During the press conference, Mr. Connor objected to being referred to as a space tourist.
“Space tourists will spend 10 to 15 hours training in space for 5-10 minutes,” he said. “And by the way, that’s okay. In our case, we spent over 1,000 hours training out of 750 hours, depending on the role.”
Mr. Connor also drew attention to the scientific experiments that he and his teammates will do.
Mr. Pathy is also chairman of the board of the Stingray Group, a Montreal-based media and entertainment company, and serves on the boards of several charities. “As a kid, I always wanted to go to space,” he said. “It was always an unattainable fantasy.”
A friend of Mr. Pathy’s told him about the Axiom special spaceflight missions. “This talk challenged me to make that dream come true,” he said.
Mr. Stibbe founded Vital Capital, a private equity fund that aims to improve housing, water, electricity and healthcare in developing countries while making money for investors. He knew another Israeli Air Force pilot, Ilan Ramon, who was an astronaut and died in 2003 when the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated while returning to Earth.
“He was a good friend,” said Mr. Stibbe. “He was my commander in the fleet. And I had the opportunity to visit him during his training.”
Mr. Stibbe said Mr. Ramon will continue an experiment involving observations of thunderstorms. He will also retrieve some pages from a diary that Mr. Ramon kept while in orbit at Columbia, which was later found on the ground.
[ad_2]
Source link