Life's a whizz for SpaceX civilian crew

WASHINGTON • SpaceX's all-civilian Inspiration4 crew spent their first day in orbit conducting scientific research and talking to children at a paediatric cancer hospital, after blasting off on their pioneering flight from Cape Canaveral on Wednesday.

St Jude tweeted that its patients got to speak with the four American space tourists, "asking the questions we all want to know like 'are there cows on the Moon?'"

Billionaire Jared Isaacman, who chartered the flight, is trying to raise US$200 million (S$269 million) for the research facility.

Inspiration4 is the first orbital spaceflight with only private citizens on board. Earlier, Mr Elon Musk's company tweeted that the crew of four were "healthy" and "happy", had completed their first round of scientific research, and enjoyed a couple of meals. Mr Musk himself tweeted that he had personally spoken with the crew and "all is well".

By now, the team should have also been able to gaze out from the Dragon ship's cupola - the largest space window ever built, which has been fitted onto the vessel for the first time in place of its usual docking mechanism.

Inspiration4 brings the total number of humans currently in space to 14, a new record. In 2009, there were 13 people on the International Space Station (ISS). There are now seven people aboard the ISS, including two Russian cosmonauts, and three Chinese astronauts on spaceship Shenzhou-12, which is bound home after its crew spent 90 days at the Tiangong space station.

Mr Isaacman, physician assistant Hayley Arceneaux, geoscientist Sian Proctor and aerospace data engineer Chris Sembroski are whizzing around the planet at an altitude that at times hits 590km. That is deeper in space than the ISS, which orbits at 420km, and the furthest any humans have ventured since a 2009 maintenance mission for the Hubble telescope.

Their ship is moving at about 28,000kmh and each day the crew will experience about 15 sunrises and sunsets. Their high speed means they are experiencing time slightly slower than people on the surface, because of a phenomenon called "relative velocity time dilation".

Apart from fundraising for charity, the mission aims to study the biological effects of deep space on the astronauts' bodies.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE