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Showing Original Post only (View all)SpaceX: Amateur astronauts launch on Inspiration4 mission [View all]
Source: BBC
Four amateur astronauts have blasted off from Florida on their private mission to orbit. The Inspiration4 crew, comprising one billionaire and three "ordinary citizens", rode out of the Kennedy Space Center in a Dragon capsule provided by the SpaceX rocket company.
The quartet will spend the next three days circling the Earth. It's another milestone in the space tourism market, which is experiencing a resurgence after a decade's hiatus.
Earlier this summer, billionaire businessmen Sir Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos went above Earth's atmosphere in their own space vehicles.
And following this latest mission, there'll be two privateer visits to the International Space Station (ISS) - one in October, carrying a Russian movie director and actress, and a second early in the New Year.
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58561621
The difference here is that SpaceX is contracted to NASA to take our astronauts up to the ISS and this particular launch has 4 "civilians" (although all are trained) into low orbit and will be there for 3 days (vs what Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic did, neither of which reached orbit).