Inspiration4 — the first-ever orbital flight crewed entirely by tourists — is set to launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center.
Here's who will be on board:
- Jared Isaacman, 38, the billionaire founder of payment processing company Shift4, who is also personally financing this entire mission.
- Hayley Arceneaux, a 29-year-old cancer survivor who now works as a physician assistant at St. Jude, the hospital where she was treated, in Memphis, Tennessee. She'll be the first person with a prosthetic body part — she has a partial prothetic femur — to go to space, and she'll serve as the flight's chief medical officer. St. Jude selected Arceneaux for this mission at Isaacman's request, according to a Netflix documentary, and, at the time, she said she was so unfamiliar with space travel that she asked if she would be traveling to the moon, unaware that humans have not set foot on the moon in 50 years.
- Sian Proctor, 51, a geologist and educator who was selected for a seat on this mission through a post on social media in which she highlights her space-related artwork and entrepreneurial spirit. She'll be only the fourth Black woman from the US to travel to orbit.
- Chris Sembroski, a 42-year-old Seattle-based Lockheed Martin employee and former camp counselor at Alabama's famed Space Camp. He won his seat through a raffle he entered by donating to St. Jude Children's Hospital, though he wasn't the official winner. His friend snagged the seat and, after deciding not to go, transferred it to him.