SpaceX, Elon Musk’s venture into space tourism, took its first private flight Wednesday night. The spacecraft named the Dragon took off from Kennedy Space Center at 8:02 pm. The Inspiration4 mission marks the first time a spacecraft will orbit the Earth with an all-amateur crew.
Onboard the Dragon are Jared Isaacman, Hayley Arceneaux, Chris Sembroski, and Sian Proctor. Isaacman is funding for the expedition and serving as the commander, while Arceneaux is the medical officer, and contest winners Chris Sembroski and Sian Proctor, are the mission specialist and pilot.
Both Proctor and Arceneaux broke records Wednesday. Proctor is the first Black female to pilot a spacecraft and Arceneaux is the youngest American in space and the first person in space with a prosthesis. Arceneaux is a childhood cancer survivor who works at Saint Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Isaacman and Arceneaux are eager to engage with Saint Jude’s patients through the SpaceX program while in space. Isaacman’s hope is to raise $200 million for St. Jude through this space expedition. The crew will be completing scientific experiments and auctioning off items in space to fundraise for Saint Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
The sentiment surrounding the Inspiration4 voyage is largely positive at 77%. Over the last 7 days, SpaceX has garnered 389, 979 mentions.The most popular hashtags include #spaceX, #inspiration4, #space, and #nasa.
Unsurprisingly, SpaceX reached its highest number of mentions on September 15, the launch day of the Dragon with 121,106. Leading up to the flight the search term “Elon Musk” also increased in mentions on September 13 and held relatively steady until September 16.
In addition to the keyword “SpaceX” getting an increase in mentions, “Saint Jude”, “Arceneaux” also had a spike on Wednesday. When using the keyword “Saint Jude”, the top themes of discussion are focused on the space mission including “Kennedy Space Center”, “Jared Isaacman”, “Cancer survivor”, “SpaceX”, and “Childhood cancer”.
The spacecraft is expected to return to Earth sometime this weekend. While this is the third private space mission, after Sir Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos flights’ in July, the Inspiration4 is unique in the length of its trip for a civilian crew. Space tourism is a new growing industry and future missions are already being planned. SpaceX in partnership with Axiom Space, are planning to send four more people into space from the International Space Station in January 2022.
