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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Four space tourists ended their groundbreaking journey into orbit with a splash of water in the Atlantic off Florida on Saturday.
They Space X The capsule parachuted into the ocean just before sunset, not far from where the charter flights began three days ago.
The purely amateur crew was the first to circumnavigate the world without a professional astronaut.
Paying undisclosed millions for the trip, the billionaire and his three guests wanted to show that ordinary people could get into orbit on their own, and Space X founder Elon Musk acknowledged them as the company’s first rocket-riding tourists.
Space X‘s fully automatic Dragon capsule reached an unusually high altitude of 363 miles (585 kilometers) after takeoff Wednesday night. Passengers leaving the International Space Station 160 kilometers behind enjoyed the view of Earth from a large bubble-shaped window attached to the top of the capsule.
The foursome returned to the atmosphere early Saturday evening, the first space travelers to finish their flight across the Atlantic since Apollo 9 in 1969. Space XThe previous two crew jumps carrying astronauts for NASA were in the Gulf of Mexico.
This time around, NASA was little more than an encouraging audience, with its only tieback being the Kennedy Space Center launch pad once used for the Apollo moonshots and shuttle crews, but it’s now leased by. Space X.
The sponsor of the trip was Jared Isaacman, 38, an entrepreneur and successful pilot. Jude Children’s Research Hospital was aiming to raise $200 million. He donated $100 million and organized a lottery for one of the four seats. It also held a competition for customers of the Allentown, Pennsylvania payment processing business, Shift4 Payments.
John, who was treated for bone cancer at the Memphis, Tennessee hospital nearly two decades ago. Jude, 29-year-old MD, and Chris Sembroski, 42, a data engineer in Everett, Washington, and Sian Proctor, 51, a community college educator, scientist, and artist from Tempe, Arizona.
By March, the aliens had spent six months training and preparing for potential emergencies during the flight, called Inspiration4. All went well, giving them St. Jude left time to chat with his patients, do medical tests on themselves, ring the closing bell of the New York Stock Exchange, and play some drawing and the ukulele.
Arceneaux, the youngest American in space and the first American with prosthetics, reassured his patients: “I was a little girl undergoing cancer treatment like many of you, and if I can do it, you can too.”
They also received calls from Tom Cruise, who was taking care of them. Space X flight to the space station for filming and Bono from rock band U2.
Even the space menus were not typical: cold pizza and sandwiches, plus pasta Bolognese and Mediterranean lamb.
About 600 people have reached space—a scorecard that started 60 years ago and is expected to skyrocket soon as space tourism heats up.
Benji Reed is a Space X The director envisions up to six special flights per year between astronaut launches for NASA. four Space X Flights are already booked, transporting paying customers to the space station, accompanied by ex-NASA astronauts. The first is targeted early next year, when the three businessmen pay $55 million each. Russia also plans to recruit an actor and film director for filming next month, and a Japanese rich man in December.
Customers interested in fast-paced space travel are turning to Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. The duo went to the extremes of space on their own rockets in July to increase ticket sales; Their flight took 10 to 15 minutes.
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