Billionaire buys of entire SpaceX launch for tourist flight and charity
Capitalism in space: An American billionaire has purchased an entire SpaceX Dragon flight and Falcon 9 launch, set for sometime in October ’21, with the goal of using the publicity of the flight to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
Besides fulfilling his dream of flying in space, Jared Isaacman announced Monday that he aims to use the private trip to raise $200 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, half coming from his own pockets.
A health care worker for St. Jude already has been selected for the mission. Anyone donating to St. Jude in February will be entered into a random drawing for seat No. 3. The fourth seat will go to a business owner who uses Shift4 Payments, Isaacman’s credit card processing company in Allentown, Pennsylvania
This flight means that SpaceX is likely going to have at about five commercial manned flights in the next year, three by NASA, one by Axiom to ISS, and Isaacman’s above. Moreover, none include the flights by various entertainers and reality show producers who have been rumored as being interesting in buying tickets. Nor does this include the tourism flights the Russians are planning in the next year.
All told, these flights strongly suggest that there is a very healthy market for commercial manned spaceflight, a market that can only grow once Boeing finally enters the market with its Starliner capsule.
I must also add that we have been waiting for commercial space tourism flights for almost sixteen years, since Richard Branson began promising them on his suborbital SpaceShipTwo back in 2004. Never happened, and now seems very second class in comparison to the pending orbital flights. As the article at the link says disparagingly about Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin’s suborbital craft, they “will just briefly skim the surface of space.”
Both Branson and Bezos had a window to make suborbital space tourism pay off. Neither stepped through it.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Capitalism in space: An American billionaire has purchased an entire SpaceX Dragon flight and Falcon 9 launch, set for sometime in October ’21, with the goal of using the publicity of the flight to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
Besides fulfilling his dream of flying in space, Jared Isaacman announced Monday that he aims to use the private trip to raise $200 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, half coming from his own pockets.
A health care worker for St. Jude already has been selected for the mission. Anyone donating to St. Jude in February will be entered into a random drawing for seat No. 3. The fourth seat will go to a business owner who uses Shift4 Payments, Isaacman’s credit card processing company in Allentown, Pennsylvania
This flight means that SpaceX is likely going to have at about five commercial manned flights in the next year, three by NASA, one by Axiom to ISS, and Isaacman’s above. Moreover, none include the flights by various entertainers and reality show producers who have been rumored as being interesting in buying tickets. Nor does this include the tourism flights the Russians are planning in the next year.
All told, these flights strongly suggest that there is a very healthy market for commercial manned spaceflight, a market that can only grow once Boeing finally enters the market with its Starliner capsule.
I must also add that we have been waiting for commercial space tourism flights for almost sixteen years, since Richard Branson began promising them on his suborbital SpaceShipTwo back in 2004. Never happened, and now seems very second class in comparison to the pending orbital flights. As the article at the link says disparagingly about Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin’s suborbital craft, they “will just briefly skim the surface of space.”
Both Branson and Bezos had a window to make suborbital space tourism pay off. Neither stepped through it.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News