US space tourists spend their first day in orbit

Four American space tourists spent their first day in orbit aboard a SpaceX spacecraft, conducting scientific research and talking to patients at a children’s cancer hospital after taking off from Cape Canaveral the day before.

Children at St. Jude’s Hospital were able to speak to the Inspiration4 mission crew, “asking them the question everyone has been asking: +Are there cows on the moon?+” tweeted the hospital.

Inspiration 4 is the first space mission composed entirely of private citizens.

The company founded by Elon Musk said on Twitter that the crew “orbited Earth 5.5 times, carried out the first round of scientific research and had some food”.

The latter indicated on his Twitter account that he had spoken with the crew and that “everything is fine”.

They will now be joined by the Dragon capsule’s dome, a massive glass dome set up to offer passengers a 360-degree view of the vacuum of space and which is normally intended to dock with the ISS. replaces the system.

Billionaire Jared Isaacman, medical assistant Hayley Arsinaux, aeronautical engineer Chris Sambrowski and science teacher Sean Proctor orbit 590 kilometers above sea level. All are space novices.

The mission, called Inspiration 4, which orbits far beyond the International Space Station (about 400 km above sea level), is the first to go so far in space since the Hubble Telescope repair mission in 2009.

It aims to raise $200 million for St. Jude’s Hospital and study the effects of space on this crew made up entirely of amateur astronauts.

– 14 humans in space –

However, the ultimate goal is to prove that space travel is accessible to the greatest number of people – even if it is reserved for the richest – while private companies such as the United States and SpaceX have put space tourism at stake.

“Missions like Inspire 4 help propel spacecraft to orbit and beyond,” Musk said in a tweet.

A new record has been broken with this mission: there are currently 14 humans in space. He was 13 years old aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in 2009.

There are currently seven Chinese astronauts aboard the ISS and three aboard the Shenzhou-12 spacecraft, bringing them home after 90 days at the Tiangong Space Station.

The SpaceX mission concludes a summer marked by a flight of billionaires to the final frontier: first Richard Branson on the Virgin Galactic spacecraft on July 11, then a few days later Jeff Bezos, with his company Blue Origin.

But those first two flights offered its crew only a few minutes of weightlessness, compared to a full three days for SpaceX tourists due to land on Florida’s west coast on Saturday.

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