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When NASA owned and operated its own spacecraft, there was no chance of leasing a Saturn 5 rocket or space shuttle to anyone else. But during the Obama administration, NASA decided to hire private companies to take its astronauts to the space station. One of the program’s secondary goals was to encourage more commercial use of low Earth orbit.
Ten years from now, SpaceX could offer trips to non-NASA astronauts like the Inspiration4 team.
“I am very optimistic about the tourism market and tourism activity,” Phil McAlister, NASA’s commercial spaceflight development director, said at a press conference in May. “I think the more people who will fly, the more they will want to do in space.”
The trip shows that a private citizen with at least a few hundred million dollars and a few months left can now charter a spacecraft to circumnavigate the planet.
In this situation, Jared Isaacman, founder of Shift4 Payments, a company that processes payments for restaurants and other businesses. When Mr. Isaacman decided to devote a large share of his fortune, he did not want to bring just a few friends. Instead, he opened up opportunities to three people he didn’t know.
The result is a mission with a team that represents the wider community — Hayley Arceneaux, St. a 29-year-old physician assistant at Jude Children’s Research Hospital; Sian Proctor, a 51-year-old Black community college professor; and, Christopher Sembroski, A 42 year old data engineer.
With his team of everyone, Mr. Isaacman has achieved a goal of science fiction writers and space enthusiasts: to open space to everyone, not just professional astronauts and wealthy space tourists.
“The difference with this flight is that we basically have three ordinary people in flight, and they’re going to show us what it means to turn it on,” said Timiebi Aganaba, professor of space and society in Arizona. State University.
A trip like Inspiration4 is still affordable only for the richest of the rich. But it is no longer impossible.
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