From space, SpaceX tourists communicate with Tom Cruise and send flight updates
Image credit: Newsbreak
SpaceX launched its first space tourism mission from Florida on Wednesday, embarking on a three-day journey that will culminate with a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean.
On Friday, four space tourists in a SpaceX capsule circling the Earth at 17,500 mph (28,162 kph) spoke with movie actor Tom Cruise and delivered a live update on life aboard the spacecraft.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched its first space tourism mission from Florida on Wednesday, embarking on a three-day journey that will end with a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean at 4:06 p.m. Pacific time (2306 GMT) on Saturday. The crew members — Jared Isaacman, Sian Proctor, Hayley Arceneaux, and Chris Sembroski — spoke with Cruise from the ship on Friday, according to mission control. Cruise is hoping to make a film in space.
Former NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine stated last year that Cruise would feature in a film that would be shot in zero gravity on the International Space Station. However, no other information regarding the project, which would be carried out in partnership with SpaceX, has been released.
During a 10-minute live webcast with mission control on Friday, the four crew members discussed their experiences in space.
Proctor, 51, a geosciences professor at an Arizona college who was a NASA astronaut nominee, exhibited a drawing she made with metallic markers of the Dragon spacecraft being propelled into orbit by a dragon.
Arceneaux, a 29-year-old physician assistant from Memphis, Tennessee’s St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, exhibited her remarkable spins in zero gravity. “It’s a lot of fun,” Arceneaux added, “and it allows us to handle really large things with ease.
Sembroski, a 42-year-old US Air Force veteran, played a few chords on his ukelele. The crew also showed off the view from the cupola, a clear glass dome that provides for a 360-degree view outside, by opening the door in the capsule’s nose.
Before liftoff, crew members said they were taking blood samples for research and performing cognitive tests that would be compared to their results. “We recognise how privileged we are to be up here,” said mission commander, billionaire Jared Isaacman.