CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida – The first crew on the private space station was unveiled Tuesday: three men each paying $ 55 million to fly a SpaceX rocket.
They will be led by a former NASA astronaut who now works for Axiom Space, the Houston company that organized the trip for next January.
“This is the first private flight to the International Space Station. It’s not done yet, “said Mike Suffredini, chief executive of Axiom and former space station program manager for NASA.
While Mission Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria is well known in space circles, “the other three guys are just people who want to be able to go into space, and we offer that opportunity,” Suffredini told The Associated Press.
The first crew will spend eight days at the space station and it will take one or two days to get there aboard a Dragon SpaceX capsule after leaving Cape Canaveral.
Russia has been in the offshore tourism business for years, selling rides to the International Space Station since 2001. Other space companies, such as Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, plan to take paying customers in. up and down flights that last only a few minutes. These trips – much more affordable, with seats of hundreds of thousands to millions – could begin this year.
Axiom’s first clients include Larry Connor, a real estate and technology entrepreneur from Dayton, Ohio, Canadian financier Mark Pathy, and Israeli businessman Eytan Stibbe, a close friend of the first Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, who was killed in the crash of the Columbia spacecraft. in 2003.
“These guys are all very involved and they do it for a kind of improvement of their communities and countries, so we couldn’t be happier with this makeup of the first crew because of their drive and interest,” Suffredini said.
Each of these first paying customers intends to conduct scientific research in orbit, he said, along with education.
Lopez-Alegria, a former resident of the space station and leader of the space path, called the group a “collection of pioneers.”
Tom Cruise was mentioned last year as a potential crew member; Senior NASA officials have confirmed that he is interested in shooting a film at the space station. It was not known on Tuesday whether Cruise would catch the next Axiom flight. Suffredini declined to comment.
Each of the private astronauts had to pass medical tests and will receive 15 weeks of training, according to Suffredini. Connor, 70, will become the second oldest person to fly in space, after the flight of John Glenn’s shuttle, in 1998, at the age of 77.
Axiom plans about two private missions a year to the space station. It is also working to launch its own live compartments in the station starting in 2024. This section will be detached from the station once it is withdrawn by NASA and international partners and will become its own private outpost.