The views are going to be breathtaking.
Going Polar
Later this year, four private space tourists are slated to become the first humans ever to fly over Earth’s poles — and the man footing the bill is a fairly recent Bitcoin billionaire. As Ars Technica reports, the SpaceX has announced the maiden voyage of its Fram2 mission, which is being funded by crypto entrepreneur Chun Wang and could be launched by the end of this year.
Named Fram2 after the Norwegian polar exploration ship that sailed the Arctic region between 1893 and 1912, the mission will be the first crewed flight to ever launch into a polar orbit. The Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying the Fram2 tourists will, as SpaceX notes in its statement announcing the mission, fly at an altitude of 250 to 310 miles.
Though the statement doesn’t explicitly say so, the Bitcoin billionaire suggested to Ars in an interview that he is paying for the entire flight, which will include cinematographer and former polar navigator Jannicke Mikkelsen, professional polar explorer Eric Phillips, and roboticist Rabea Rogge.
Their combined expertise uniquely positions the Fram2 crew for the mission’s research goals. According to the company’s statement, the crew will observe the Earth’s poles from inside the Dragon’s cupola, “leveraging insight from space physicists and citizen scientists to study unusual light emissions resembling auroras.”
“The crew will study green fragments and mauve ribbons of continuous emissions comparable to the phenomenon known as STEVE (Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement),” the statement reads, “which has been measured at an altitude of approximately [249 to 311 miles] above Earth’s atmosphere.”
It certainly sounds like a breathtaking experience, and one that seems worth spending untold millions to charter.
Space Billionaire Club
While Fram2 is the first crewed flight of its kind, it’s far from the first private SpaceX mission to send tourists aboard a Crew Dragon capsule into space.
Back in 2021, billionaire Jared Isaacman made history when he commanded the Inspiration4 mission, which was not only the Elon Musk-owned firm’s first privately-chartered launch but also the world’s first all-civilian space mission.
Isaacman is also slated to pilot the forthcoming Polaris Dawn mission, which will once again see the payment processing mogul making history as he and his three-person crew don specially-made spacesuits and become the first civilians ever to do a spacewalk.
With space tourism growing in popularity and frequency for Wang and Isaacman’s uber-rich counterparts, the novelty of this mission in particular sets it apart — and, in that sense, makes it a bit less loathsome than some of the others we’ve seen.
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