See who will travel on SpaceX’s first space tourism mission

SpaceX is heading back to the launch pad, this time to put a group of four citizens into orbit for an unprecedented trip to the International Space Station (ISS).

The trip was organized by Axiom Space, a private startup that is booking tours with SpaceX and coordinating flights to the ISS for those who can afford it.

Passengers on this trip — which includes former NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegría, who will command the mission as an Axiom employee, and three paying customers — are scheduled to take off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday at 11:17 am. ET.

They will travel inside a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, the same capsule SpaceX has already used to transport astronauts from NASA to the ISS. The capsule travels to orbit atop one of SpaceX’s 230-foot-tall Falcon 9 rockets.

The capsule will detach from the rocket and fly freely through space throughout Thursday as the spacecraft slowly approaches the ISS. She is scheduled to dock with the space station around 3 am ET on Friday.

This mission, called AX-1, will mark the first time in history that private citizens, or non-professional astronauts, will be launched to the ISS from American soil.

And it’s the first of what Axiom hopes will be many similar flights, for those who can afford it.

The AX-1 mission is also only SpaceX’s second space tourism flight, following the September 2021 launch of four private citizens on a three-day free-flight trip through orbit that traveled even higher than the ISS.

During their eight-day stay on the space station, the AX-1 crew must conduct some science experiments, feed on the professional astronauts already aboard the football field-sized space station, and enjoy breathtaking views of our home planet.

Who is on this mission?

Lopez-Alegría, 63, made four space trips between 1995 and 2007 during his time at NASA. He left the space agency in 2012 and joined Axiom a few years later with the aim of returning to space – but as a private astronaut rather than an official member of the corps.

Axiom serves as an intermediary between paying customers who want to take an exciting million-dollar trip to space, book flights with SpaceX, handle negotiations with NASA, and take on training for future space travelers.

The company hopes to make these flights a regular occurrence, as the US space agency agreed a few years ago to open the ISS to space tourism and other commercial ventures.

It is unclear how much these trips cost the customer. While previously released prices indicated that a trip to the ISS costs $55 million per seat, Axiom declined to confirm that figure this week.

“Axiom Space does not disclose financial terms,” Axiom spokeswoman Bettina Inclan told CNN Buisness via email.)

There are three paying customers on this flight. They are all wealthy white males, continuing a trend plaguing the commercial spaceflight industry and its inaccessibility to more diverse swaths of the population.

The vast majority of people who have so far managed to pay their way into space — whether on SpaceX flights or suborbital missions like those offered by Blue Origin — are white businessmen.

It is an indication of how far the promised dream of far away space is from reality that comes from entrepreneurs who claim that space is “for everyone” and that commercialization will “democratize” it amid growing income inequality.

With such exuberant prices, the space will remain commercially accessible only to the elite for the foreseeable future.

Real estate mogul Larry Connor

Larry Connor, 72, is a real estate mogul from Dayton, Ohio. He founded The Connor Group, which has ventures in 16 markets across the country and has more than $3.5 billion in assets, according to the company’s website. He is an avid adventurer, having driven cars and climbed mountains.

He also has experience as a private pilot and has participated in stunt competitions, and will be the designated pilot for this mission. (It should be noted that SpaceX’s Crew Dragon is fully autonomous, although spaceflight pilots train to be prepared to take control is something that goes wrong.)

“My journey really started seven or eight years ago. I’ve always been interested in space, and I started thinking about it after reading about an American who went to Russia and went on the Soyuz. [nave espacial],” he said in an interview. with the Dayton Society of Natural History last year after their plans to fly the AX-1 were revealed.

Connor was likely referring to one of the US citizens who booked a flight to the ISS through Space Adventures, a company that has guaranteed seats aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft for tourists since the early 2000s.

These flights were always coordinated with the Russian space agency and included official Russian astronauts. The AX-1 mission will be the first to include a crew composed entirely of private astronauts.

Connor said he decided to reserve the mission for “the challenge”. “We’re really going to train to the standards of professional astronauts,” he said.

Former Transport CEO Mark Pathy

Mark Pathy, 52, is the founder and CEO of Canadian investment and family office firm Mavrik Corp.

CB Insights, which tracks private investments, only lists one known investment. He backed a Canadian startup called Ferme d’hiver, which he says “offers AI-powered farm automation tools.”

Pathy is also the former CEO of a transportation company, Fednav, which is owned by the Pathy family.

About the AX-1 mission, Pathy told CTV News: “It’s a lot of money. I feel very fortunate to be able to afford this kind of travel. Obviously, few people can. But at the same time, I don’t have to choose between doing something like this or being philanthropically active.”

He added that going into space “has been a dream since I was a kid and watched Captain Kirk leap across the universe on the Enterprise.”

Eytan Stibbe

Eytan Stibbe, 64, is an Israeli businessman.

According to his Axiom biography, Stibbe, a former Israeli Air Force fighter pilot, founded Vital Capital a decade ago. His website states that the company invests in companies involved in sectors such as food and health in developing areas, mainly in Africa, for “high-return opportunities”.

Axiom says Stibbe’s journey is happening “in collaboration” with the Ramon Foundation, a non-profit space education organization named after Israel’s first astronaut, Ilan Ramon, who died in the space shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003.

Stibbe’s biography also says that he and Ramon shared a “close” friendship. Stibbe will be only the second Israeli to go into space.

He announced his decision to join the AX-1 crew at a ceremony at the Israeli president’s residence in 2020, and was met with criticism from the Israeli press, which pointed to alleged dealings in Stibbe’s past, particularly related to drug trafficking allegations. military equipment during his time at LR Group, an investment and development group he left in 2011, according to a Stibbe representative.

Specifically, reports allege that Stibbe was involved in the sale of military aircraft in Angola, which was embroiled in a brutal civil war from the 1970s until 2002.

The allegations date back to reports by Israeli news site Haaretz.

In a 2012 television interview, which was conducted in Hebrew and translated by Israeli news outlets and CNN Business, Stibbe also appeared to confirm his involvement.

“We helped Angola to end the war by bringing interceptor planes, two Su-27 fighter jets, from Uzbekistan,” he said. “Their presence in the country disrupted flights that supplied weapons, food and ammunition and the export of illegal diamonds from Angola. After a year, or a year and a half, the war was over.”

A statement shared with CNN Business on behalf of Stibbe states that “the LR Group’s businesses in Angola deal almost exclusively with agricultural infrastructure, professional training, water, airports and telecommunications”.

It adds that Grupo LR “received a request from the government [de Angola apoiado pelos EUA] to help upgrade its airspace infrastructure to ICAO international standards” and that aircraft sales were made “with export licenses and fully legal”.

“Furthermore, the aircraft and air control radars were used for deterrence purposes only,” the statement reads.

LR Group responded in a statement to CNN Business, saying that “LR Group has been involved in the areas of health, telecommunications, food, agriculture, renewable energy and water, with the aim of developing the independence and economic and social well-being of populations around the world.”

“During the time that Stibbe was a partner in the company, he was responsible for operating and financing the company’s business activity in Angola,” the statement reads. “After he separated from the company, he bought the activity in Angola in 2012, and continued to operate there.”

The LR Group is currently involved in a legal dispute relating to allegations against Stibbe when he was a partner in the company.

Stibbe’s representatives declined to comment on the legal battle.

As for his decision to go into space, Stibbe said that “as a child, on dark nights, I used to watch the stars and wait patiently to see a shooting star, and I asked myself: What is there beyond what the eyes see?” he said.

With its release scheduled for this week, Stibbe will soon find out.