Crew for the first ever private flight to the International Space Station was introduced on Tuesday. It includes three men, each paying $55 million for the trip, and a former NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria.
The first-of-its-kind?space trip?is being organised by Axiom Space, a Houston-based aerospace manufacturer. The designated crew, including the private travellers, will fly to the ISS next January on a?SpaceX rocket.??
¡°This is the first private flight to the International Space Station. It's never been done before," said Axiom's chief executive and president Mike Suffredini. In an interaction with The Associated Press, Suffredini confirmed that the three paid travellers ¡°are just people who want to be able to go to space, and we're providing that opportunity."
The first private crew will lift off from Cape Canaveral aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule and take one or two days to get to the ISS. Once on the station, each of the customers intends to perform science research in orbit. They will come back to Earth after spending eight days in space.
Axiom's first customers include Larry Connor, a real estate and tech entrepreneur from Dayton, Ohio, Mark Pathy - a Canadian financier, and Israeli businessman Eytan Stibbe. Stibbe is reportedly a close friend of Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli astronaut who lost his life in the space shuttle Columbia accident in 2003.
Suffredini mentions that each of the private astronauts had to pass medical tests for the flight, following which, they will now get 15 weeks of training. With the flight, 70-year-old Connor is also set to become the second-oldest person to fly in space, after John Glenn who took a shuttle flight in 1998 at the age of 77. Connor will also serve as the capsule pilot under Lopez-Alegria.