[Isaacman]: Kind of been saying it all along since
we announced the Inspiration4 mission that, you know, the stars have continued
to align for us every step of the way, and have continued to do so
here with our crew.
[narrator]: The Inspiration4 mission is the brainchild
of Jared Isaacman, the 38 year old billionaire
CEO of Shift4 payments, an online payment company. Isaacman bought all four seats on
a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft with the intention of flying an all civilian crew, both to help
democratize space travel—opening it up to non-professional astronauts—and to raise
funds and awareness for the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.
Other civilians have been in space before—including Bill Nelson, the current Administrator of
NASA—back in 1986, when he was a congressman. But the handful of other civilians who have
flown have always taken off as part of a crew made up of professional astronauts. Both Jeff
Bezos and Richard Branson flew brief hops to suborbital space in July of this year
without astronauts,
but Inspiration4 is a much more ambitious orbital mission—the first with an entirely
non-professional-astronaut crew.
Inspiration4 will be aloft for three days, flying at an altitude of 365 miles—higher
than the Hubble Space Telescope flies. The crew will be aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft
and will be launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The mission will be run out of SpaceX’s
own mission control in Hawthorne, California.
Isaacman will be commanding the mission and will be joined by three other crew members
chosen in three different ways. Hayley Arceneaux, 29, is a survivor of childhood cancer and
a physician assistant at St. Jude. Isaacman knew from the start that he wanted a St. Jude
employee to fly and the hospital suggested Arceneaux.
[Arceneaux]: I definitely think that my journey with cancer
prepared me for this. Having cancer made me tough,
or at least I'd like to think that, and so I feel ready for space travel.
[narrator]: Also aboard is Chris Sembroski, a veteran
of the Iraq war and currently an engineer
at Lockheed Martin in Everett Washington. He was selected by making a contribution to
St. Jude and entering a lottery to win a seat. He actually lost the drawing, but the person
who won it—who decided to pull out for personal reasons—is Sembroski’s best friend and
recommended he take his place. Isaacman agreed.
[Sembroski]: This moment of, oh, I'm going to space?
You picked me? It mean it was that moment of shock
and now it's just all the emotion and excitement's coming out.
[narrator]: Finally, there is Sian Proctor, 51, a professor
of geosciences at South Mountain Community
College in Phoenix, Arizona and a two-time astronaut candidate at NASA—though she was
never selected. She won her seat on Inspiration4 in a contest in which aspirants designed an
online store using Shift4 Payment’s software and then developed a social media campaign
sharing their entrepreneurial and space visions.
[Dr. Proctor]: Instead of that No call, I got the Yes.
And it's that life-changing Yes moment, something that I have wanted my entire life.
And I'm so thankful and so happy to be here.
[narrator]: The crew is currently in training up to 60
hours per week, spending their time in simulators
and classrooms, as well as deep in briefing books and technical manuals. They have also
spent time in centrifuges and altitude chambers and even aboard Isaacman’s own jet, which
he used to get them accustomed to the g-forces they will experience on liftoff and reentry.
The crew is set to launch on September 15 and will be aloft for three days, running
science experiments, communicating with Earth to promote the St. Jude cause and the mission
of civilian space travel and, not least of all, flying their Crew Dragon spacecraft.
Mealtime will consist of pre-packaged space food—not always the most appetizing fare—and
with no sleep pods like the space station has, the crew will bunk down in their assigned
seats in the spacecraft. The days will be filled with the scheduled experiments and
communications and though the Dragon is an automated ship, it is sure to need some human
intervention from time to time.