SpaceX's First Private Flight to Put a 29-Year-Old American in Orbit
SpaceX's first private flight will carry the youngest ever American to orbit:
SpaceX recently announced that it would send four civilians into orbit aboard its Crew Dragon capsule, marking the first time that a crew without a single professional astronaut would fly into space. One of those private citizens will be Hayley Arceneaux, who at 29 years old will be the youngest-ever American to fly into space, the NY Times has reported.
The trip came about thanks to Jared Isaacman, a billionaire who purchased the debut commercial astronaut rocket launch from SpaceX. He'll get one Crew Dragon seat on the Inspiration 4 mission, but he also donated three others. One will go to the winner of a contest sponsored by his company Shift4 and another to a St. Jude's Hospital sweepstakes winner. A fourth seat, however, was meant for a frontline St. Jude's Hospital worker who symbolizes hope, and that person is Hayley Arceneaux.
From the linked article at The New York Times:
Ms. Arceneaux [...] will also be the first person with a prosthetic body part to go to space. She was a patient at St. Jude nearly 20 years ago, and as part of her treatment for bone cancer, metal rods replaced parts of the bones in her left leg.
In the past, that would have kept her firmly on the ground, unable to meet NASA's stringent medical standards for astronauts. But the advent of privately financed space travel has opened the final frontier to some people who were previously excluded.
Also at AP News and The Advocate.
Previously:
Elon Musk's SpaceX Announces a Spaceflight Intended to Raise Money for St. Jude Hospital/
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