With the addition of Inspiration4’s crew, there are now a record 14 people in space, according to the New York Times. The launch created a breathtaking effect in the night sky, where clouds and rocket exhaust illuminated to look much like a jellyfish, AccuWeather reported. Proctor danced as she made her way to the hatch. Once at the launch pad, they posed for pictures and bumped gloved fists, before taking the elevator up. Photograph: SpaceX/AFP/Getty Imagesįour hours before liftoff, the four emerged from SpaceX’s huge rocket hangar, waving and blowing kisses to their families and company employees, before they were driven off to get into their sleek white flight suits. Initially reluctant because of the increased radiation exposure and other risks, SpaceX agreed after a safety review.Ī plush dog floating in the capsule of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Inspiration4 crew. Isaacman, an accomplished pilot, persuaded SpaceX to take the Dragon capsule higher than it’s ever been. “Congratulations to the world’s 4 newest astronauts!” tweeted the Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. The larger astronaut community is also watching, with some already welcoming Arceneaux, Sembroski, Proctor and Isaacman to the pack. “To me, the more people involved in it, whether private or government, the better,” said the Nasa astronaut Shane Kimbrough, who is nearing the end of his six-month space station stay. While Nasa has no role in the process, its managers and astronauts are rooting for the flight, dubbed Inspiration4. “It was an honor to wish you Godspeed before you left for orbit!” Musk tweeted, replying to a photo of him with the four-person crew. The passengers will spend three days orbiting Earth at an unusually high altitude of 357 miles (575km) – 100 miles higher than the International Space Station – before splashing down off the Florida coast this weekend. Isaacman has pledged $100m of his own money to the hospital and is seeking another $100m in donations.Īuction items to benefit St Jude’s are going to space in the capsule, too, the New York Times reported.Īlso along for the ride are the sweepstakes winners Chris Sembroski, 42, a data engineer in Everett, Washington, and Sian Proctor, 51, a community college educator in Tempe, Arizona.Īrceneaux is set to become the youngest American in space and the first person in space with a prosthesis, a titanium rod in her left leg.įrom left to right, Christopher Sembroski, Dr Sian Proctor, Jared Isaacman and Hayley Arceneaux. Isaacman is joined by Hayley Arceneaux, 29, a childhood cancer survivor who works as a physician assistant at St Jude children’s research hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. “Another step towards a future where space is accessible to all of us,” he tweeted on Thursday. Isaacman is the third billionaire to launch this summer, following flights by Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson and Blue Origin’s Jeff Bezos in July.īezos congratulated Musk and SpaceX on the successful launch. Leading the flight is Jared Isaacman, 38, who made his fortune with a payment-processing company he started in his teens. “It gives me goosebumps even right now to talk about it.” “It blows me away, honestly,” the SpaceX director, Benji Reed, said on the eve of launch from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center.

All civilian space crew