On September 16 at 00:02 UTC, Falcon 9 Booster 1062 launched Crew Dragon Resilience carrying the Inspiration4 crew into low Earth orbit. This flight was purchased by billionaire and pilot, Jared Isaacman. Flying alongside him was Dr. Sian Proctor, a geology professor who became the fourth Black woman to go into space; Hayley Arceneaux is the first person with an implant to go into space, a metal rod in her left thigh as a result of her childhood bone cancer; Chris Sembroski, a data engineer and Air Force veteran. This mission’s diversity is amazing and shows that we have a long way to go in making NASA’s astronaut core truly representative.

Their flight plan followed the same path as missions to the ISS, allowing them to use the same abort sites and other safety plans as past NASA crewed missions. They didn’t actually go to the ISS, however, but continued on to a higher orbit.

Booster 1062 successfully landed on the droneship Just Read The Instructions, completing its third flight.

The mission had a whole list of notable things including but not limited to:

• the first orbital spaceflight to not visit a space station since STS-125 in 2009 (that was the shuttle mission that repaired the HST),
• the first launch to landing reuse of a crewed capsule,
• the first time two reused crew spacecraft were in orbit at the same time (Inspiration4’s Dragon and one of the Dragons on the ISS),
• the largest single piece window launched into space,
• the first time three SpaceX Dragon’s were in orbit at the same time (two Crew Dragons and a Cargo Dragon),
• and finally, the quickest turnaround between flights of the same reusable crewed spacecraft at 136 days. For comparison, the Space Shuttle averaged 152 days between flights of the same vehicle before the Challenger accident and 226 days afterward, not counting the stand-down time after the accidents.

None of these factors are what caused so many of us to tune in and watch the launch, however. This mission was the first to demonstrate that if you have enough money, you can become a gentle-person explorer in the same spirit as the wealthy researchers of two centuries ago. Once upon a time, when research was self-funded, it was wealthy gentle-folk who led research in archaeology, astronomy, and myriad other fields. In astronomy, we greatly benefited from men like William Parsons, the third Earl of Rosse. His mammoth telescopes were beyond what universities could afford and allowed the structures of galaxies to be studied for the first time.

Inspiration4 was leveraged to do research on space radiation. It went to a significantly higher orbit than the majority of human missions. Data collected, including blood work and ultrasound data, will aid research exploring how to safely make it beyond low-Earth orbit and its protective magnetic field.

Unlike a NASA mission, there was little coverage after spacecraft separation. This crew could stop and enjoy the experience of their trip to space without having to be on camera at all times. This is the next step in normalizing human spaceflight. It also means that whatever went wrong with their waste management system wasn’t shown on camera, and I suspect everyone is grateful to not actually know the details on that issue.

This mission was not without controversy. Following on the heels of Richard Branson and Jeff Bezo’s tourist flights to the boundary of space, a lot of folks were geared up to find things to be upset about, and SpaceX provided. Anyone tuning in heard this mission described as “the first all civilian orbital flight” and this led to a lot of folks, especially military folks, simply saying, “No”. This is where language gets tricky. 

There have been a number of NASA and Russian flights that included no one with any active-duty military experience. There have not been any missions that didn’t include someone inducted into the astronaut core. Many nations allow people to apply to be astronauts, and in the U.S., this is one of those jobs like FBI agent or postal worker in which you are part of the Federal Government and are expected to act, even in your private life, in certain non-partisan ways as a sworn civil servant.  When SpaceX and NASA say this was the first all civilian mission, they mean there were no active-duty military or civil servants.

And this is where people, including me, faced a lot of mixed emotions with this flight. It is amazing to see how one wealthy man with a dream can help three others achieve their own dreams of space flight. It was amazing to see how this mission, like a 5K charity run, was leveraged to raise money for St. Jude’s Childrens’ Research Hospital. But to those of us who live not-for-profit lives and have worked to confine our dreams to what NASA’s budget and NSF grant awards allow, this mission brought heartache. 

We are returning to the days of intellectual pursuits being somewhat limited to those with the privileges of wealth and to that fraction of a percent who have the merit and the luck and the privilege to rise up through competition to succeed. I want a world where anyone with the capability to be a scientist has the opportunity to be an academic researcher earning a fair wage, and that is not our reality. But that is a story for a longer think piece or two, which I’ll be posting on Medium.

For now, let’s celebrate what this crew accomplished and look forward to the efforts of future private launches.

After three days in space, Inspiration4 returned to Earth on the evening of September 18. They landed in the Atlantic Ocean about 44 kilometers east of Cape Canaveral at 23:06 UTC, making this SpaceX’s first recovery of a Dragon in the Atlantic Ocean.

More Information

Inspiration4  launch press release 

Inspiration4 splashdown press release

Launch video

Splashdown video