Yesterday news broke that the first all private space flight would occur to the International Space Station or ISS. This was huge news and I bet you guessed whose rocket is going to be used. SpaceX! While private citizens have been flown to the ISS before by Russia this is the first time the whole crew will be private individuals.
The company that proposed this and was granted permission to do so was Axiom Space, a space company based out of Houston. The three people who have bought their seats are paying a whopping $55 million apiece and represent 3 different countries hailing from the United States, Canada, and Isreal. Even the pilot of the spacecraft is an executive of Axiom. What was really amazing to see is that the three individuals who were chosen each picked out a charity or organization to work on different research experiments with. These three are not by any means going on a space vacation they are going to do research!
Next January really could usher in a whole new idea of space travel. While companies like Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic will take people to the edge of space these individuals will be in the vacuum of space! Axiom first came to my attention a few years ago when they were featured in the Houston Chronicle for wanting to put the first space hotel in orbit. It appears that they have deviated a little bit from that goal but still want to end up building a private space station. Axiom plans to have its own models attached to the ISS starting in 2024 and when the space station is retired these modules would detach and continue to orbit on their own!
Just a decade ago an idea like this was crazy and now it is slowly becoming a reality! These individuals do are by no means your average astronauts as one of them would be 70 when the rocket is launched! I cannot wait to follow this story as it develops. As big followers of space news know Tom Cruise is supposed to film part of the next Mission Impossible from space actually in the ISS! Does this mean he could be the next one in line to go in a private mission!?!
