Civilians to Space 2021!

Space X Dragon Resilience has returned to earth as of last Sunday, 2nd May with 4 astronauts on board. But it won't be on earth for long because it is due to take off again, mid-September for a 3-day sightseeing tour of space with 4 civilians on board! That's mind-blowing because none of them are trained astronauts. And the nerves go just watching astronauts launch and return to earth, never mind ordinary civilians being in that position. At the same time, it's exciting, if rather surreal, given the last year where just one virus has taken over and stopped the world from functioning. Yet here we are thinking of sending civilians to space, as though nothing has been happening at all, as if it's been business as usual. Shame biology isn't as advanced as space science/physics! 

The civilian mission is called 'Inspiration 4' and is funded by Jared Isaacman, a billionaire whose fantasy has always been to fly in space - and now he can afford it, he is one of the four on board. The others are Haley Arceneaux; Chris Sembroski; and Sian Proctor. The last two were chosen through a contest set up by Isaacman to raise money for charity. 

Going off to space on missions is a highly risky exercise because so much can go wrong - calculations need to be pinpoint accurate otherwise it's fatal. The astronauts' suit has to be perfect, no leaks or general mishaps, such as, insulation foam breaking off disrupting the thermal system causing overheating which is a relatively common problem. There's always an element of the unknown and the invisible, yet crew  shoot off incredibly fast into orbit and back down again. But there's still a lot of nail-biting trial and error so, is it too soon to send civilians to space? Missions do go wrong, astronauts do die and it's a tragedy when they do. The most recent being in 2003, when foam broke off on the the Space Shuttle Columbia and killed all seven on board because the spacecraft fell apart due to overheating. Unfortunately, that's part of the hazard of an astronaut's job whereas it's not the same if civilians die. To my mind, it's rather like a war situation - if you shoot soldiers, it's a tragedy but if you shoot civilians, there's an outcry. 

Crewed shuttle missions go to the ISS because, should there be any damage to the spacecraft, then a rescue mission can be undertaken to ensure that re-entry is safe. However, Inspiration 4, will not be going to the ISS, so what happens if there's damage to the spacecraft on its journey to Space or while orbiting, and it has to re-enter in a damaged state? Surely that will be a serious problem! But even a small problem is bigger if there is no trained astronaut on board to undertake damage repair. How has risk assessment been adapted for non-astronauts? Where's the back-up plan if there's a problem?

I'm not sure what I think of civilians going to space as early as this September. It's one thing to go to space to undertake research and provide us with better knowledge, but it's quite another to go to space on merely a tourist trip for the length of a bank holiday weekend, at this point in time. 

Friday 7th May is #spaceday in the US. Happy space day!🚀🛰👩‍🚀

https://www.space.com/spacex-crew-dragon-resilience-private-inspiration4-mission