{"id":2927,"date":"2021-09-18T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-18T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/?p=2927"},"modified":"2021-09-21T06:51:19","modified_gmt":"2021-09-21T06:51:19","slug":"spacex-launches-historic-inspiration4-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/spacex-launches-historic-inspiration4-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX Launches Historic Inspiration4 Mission"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(To donate to St. Jude Children\u2019s Research Hospital, feel free to visit the St. Jude page dedicated to the Inspiration4 mission<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this point, we\u2019re already a little bit familiar with the situation. We\u2019ve been here before\u2014first with Virgin Galactic\u2019s VSS Unity<\/em> launch last July<\/a>, then Blue Origin\u2019s New Shepard<\/em> launch a little over a week after<\/a>. Now, Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX joins the commercial spaceflight fray with its own civilian-crewed space launch. This time around, though, they made the stakes and meaningfulness much more significant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Inspiration4 crew took off in SpaceX\u2019s Crew Dragon spacecraft, which sat atop the company\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket. (Kraus\/Inspiration4, 2021) <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The mission that just launched from Pad 39A in NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center, Florida, at around 8:02 p.m. EDT is now making historic leaps and bounds for several reasons. Coined the Inspiration4<\/em> mission, it is the first space flight in history that was completely manned by civilians. The four members of the mission were trained for the rigors on the body involved with space flight, particularly launch and descent, but the four were otherwise completely new to what would be their momentous achievement. The Crew Dragon was designed to be fully automated for Inspiration4, though the crew were also given some training on manual flight in case of an anomalous event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The four passengers were: Shift4 Payments<\/em> CEO and trained pilot Jared Isaacman, who also serves as mission commander and the mission\u2019s primary benefactor; physician\u2019s assistant and cancer survivor Hayley Arceneaux, who works in St. Jude Children\u2019s Research Hospital<\/em>, the beneficiary of the mission; Lockheed Martin data engineer and United States Air Force (USAF) veteran Chris Sembroski; and geoscientist and Maricopa Community College geology professor Sian Proctor, who is also a science communicator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The four-person civilian crew of Inspiration4, from left: Chris Sembroski, Sian Proctor, Jared Isaacman, and Hayley Arceneaux. (Kraus\/Inspiration4, 2021) <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The four-person crew sat atop SpaceX\u2019s 70-m (229-ft.) Falcon 9 rocket, and rode inside  the company\u2019s Crew Dragon spacecraft. The four passengers are equipped to stay in space for the three-day mission, and are set to ascend to 575 km (357 mi) above the surface of the Earth\u2014higher than both the Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin missions that came before them, as well as both the international Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope. While they brought enough supplies with them to last them a week, according to Isaacman, they are planned to descend back down to Earth after three days, on September 18 or 19 local time, marking the end of the historic spaceflight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of Inspiration4\u2019s goals is to raise US$200 million for St. Jude Children\u2019s Research Hospital; Isaacman, who also funded the mission, will donate half of the goal himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Mission Plan<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Ten months prior, Isaacman gott himself a seat at SpaceX for a civilian mission launch. Thing is, he had something much grander planned; he actually secured all seats of the Crew Dragon for his flight, for an undisclosed amount of money. He wanted to use his flight to inspire and \u201c[represent] a new era for human spaceflight and exploration,\u201d according to the mission\u2019s website. And thus, the Inspiration4 mission was born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jared Isaacman, primary benefactor of the mission, is also a trained pilot; he is the mission commander for Inspiration4. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

To do this, Isaacman designated a beneficiary to aid in his desire to raise money and awareness for children\u2019s cancer research. He then decided to designate St. Jude Children\u2019s Hospital, a research hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, in the United States of America, as his beneficiary. The mission now also serves as a call for donations and help to the cancer research institution that helps around 7,800 active patients each year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In alignment with the mission\u2019s objective, Isaacman designated the four seats in the now all-civilian mission as \u201cpillars\u201d to inspire all peoples. To this extent, he gave the seats the names \u201cLeadership<\/em>,\u201d \u201cHope<\/em>,\u201d \u201cGenerosity<\/em>,\u201d and \u201cProsperity<\/em>.\u201d With himself, being a trained pilot, occupying the seat of \u201cLeadership\u201d as mission commander, Isaacman set about gathering his other three crew members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our Eyes In the Sky<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For \u201cHope,\u201d Isaacman wanted to grant the seat to an individual who represented hope for humanity. He wanted a frontline worker in the seat\u2014and so he looked into the stories of the people working for St. Jude Children\u2019s Research Hospital. There, he met 29-year-old Hayley Arceneaux.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arceneaux, a physician\u2019s assistant, was herself also a cancer survivor. She had been diagnosed with bone cancer at age 10, where she was checked in at St. Jude for treatment. There, she underwent several rounds of chemotherapy. The hospital took notice of her positive disposition, and asked for her help in talking to fellow patients. She became a bastion of hope for her fellow patients, cheering them up despite being a patient herself. Eventually, she would be treated for her cancer, but not without a cost: she needed a prosthetic to replace the bone in one of her legs after her battle with cancer, so she now has a metal rod in its place. However, out of her desire to help other cancer patients, she herself grew up to work as a physician\u2019s assistant, and decided to work in the very hospital that took care of her for so many years. For all this and more, she would be given the seat of \u201cHope;\u201d the 29-year-old, now also a mission specialist<\/em> for Inspiration4, is also the youngest-ever American to fly in space, and the first to fly there with a prosthesis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hayley Arceneaux, 29, is now the youngest American to ever head to space. She is also the first to fly there with a prosthesis. (Kraus\/Inspiration4, 2021) <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

For the seat of \u201cGenerosity,\u201d Isaacman decided to select from one of the bidders of a donation auction for St. Jude, which ended up raising US$13 million. An unnamed individual had actually won the seat after donating, but later found out that they were unable to go. In their stead, they recommended the seat be transferred to their friend Chris Sembroski.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sembroski also donated to the auction, but was content on simply donating at the time, saying that he would at least \u201cget a neat little patch out of it.\u201d Based on his work experience with Lockheed Martin, and being a USAF veteran who also worked on maintaining Minute III intercontinental ballistic missiles, Sembroski now also serves as mission specialist<\/em> for Inspiration4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Chris Sembroski sits to represent the pillar of \u201cGenerosity\u201d for the Inspiration4 mission. He now serves as its mission specialist. (Kraus\/Inspiration4, 2021) <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Isaacman decided to host a contest to select the fourth seat for Inspiration4, assigned to the mission pillar of \u201cProsperity.\u201d In it, participants were asked to submit videos wherein they would make shops, and promote them in the said videos while calling for donations to St. Jude. Sian Proctor, a geoscientist and a community college professor, was chosen as the winner of the contest, which garnered her the fourth seat, representing \u201cProsperity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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