Elon Musk's SpaceX venture has launched the first all-civilian crew into space Wednesday night in a historic step forward in space tourism. The mission, called 'Inspiration4' used SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket to blast four space tourists into space, none of whom are professional astronauts, and some are saying it is a genuinely ground-breaking moment in human history.
On Wednesday, Musk celebrated as the Inspiration4 crew left the hanger on their way to launch. The mission was operated by Musk's SpaceX and paid for by the billionaire entrepreneur.
The rocket carrying Jared Isaacman, a 38-year-old tech entrepreneur, Sian Proctor, a 51-year-old geoscientist, Chris Sembroski, a 42-year-old aerospace data engineer, and Hayley Arceneaux, a 29-year-old physician assistant, lifted off shortly after 8 p.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The launch was the first step in what is planned an audacious three-day journey in Earth'sEarth's orbit before re-entering the atmosphere and pummeling down in the Atlantic Ocean.
"You are truly inspiring the world," came the word from SpaceX mission control as the rocket took flight. "Good luck, Godspeed, and enjoy the ride."
The event was remarkable because, unlike the space flights led by billionaires Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos in July, considered the first of their kind, Musk himself is not aboard the Crew Dragon capsule. The Inspiration4 mission is also noticeably longer. When Bezos rode the New Shepard rocket, built by his company Blue Origin, he remained in orbit for only 11-minutes. Branson's Virgin Galactic rocket plane took him into space for 1.5-hours, a far cry from the three days the crew of the Inspiration4 will experience.
Both Bezos and Branson were quick to congratulate Musk and the SpaceX team on Thursday. Bezos wrote on Twitter that the event was another step towards a future where space is accessible to everyone, and Branson referred to the event as another great moment for space exploration.
People are calling the event genuinely ground-breaking and a major step forward in space tourism. SpaceX hopes this will be the first of many future tourism missions, paving the way toward a future when space travel is more common, and a trip into the Earth's orbit is as easy as it is to hop on an airplane.
NASA was quick to congratulate the Inspiration4 team Wednesday, tweeting that the launch,"represents a significant milestone in the quest to make space for everybody."
Source: Anadolu Agency, Independent, NBC News