Trailblazing tourist trip to orbit ends with splashdown

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. — Four space tourists safely ended their trailblazing trip to orbit Saturday with a splashdown in the Atlantic off the Florida coast.

Their SpaceX capsule parachuted into the ocean just before sunset, not far from where their chartered flight began three days earlier.

The all-amateur crew was the first to circle the world without a professional astronaut.

The billionaire who paid undisclosed millions for the trip and his three guests wanted to show that ordinary people could blast into orbit by themselves, and SpaceX founder Elon Musk took them on as the company’s first rocket-riding tourists.

“Your mission has shown the world that space is for all of us,” SpaceX Mission Control radioed.

“It was a heck of a ride for us ... just getting started,” replied trip sponsor Jared Isaacman, referring to the growing number of private flights on the horizon.

SpaceX’s fully automated Dragon capsule reached an unusually high altitude of 585 kilometres after Wednesday night’s liftoff. Surpassing the International Space Station by 160 kilometres, the passengers savoured views of Earth through a big bubble-shaped window added to the top of the capsule.

The four streaked back through the atmosphere early Saturday evening, the first space travellers to end their flight in the Atlantic since Apollo 9 in 1969. SpaceX’s two previous crew splashdowns — carrying

astronauts for NASA — were in the Gulf of Mexico.

Within a few minutes, a pair of SpaceX boats pulled up alongside the bobbing capsule. When the capsule’s hatch was opened on the recovery ship, healthcare worker Hayley Arceneaux was the first one out, flashing a big smile and thumbs up.

All appeared well and happy. Their families were waiting near the scene of Wednesday night’s launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

This time, NASA was little more than an encouraging bystander, its only tie being the Kennedy launch pad once used for the Apollo moon shots and shuttle crews, but now leased by SpaceX.

Isaacman, 38, an entrepreneur and accomplished pilot, aimed to raise $200 million (U.S.) for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Donating $100 million himself, he held a lottery for one of the four seats. Late Saturday, Musk tweeted he was donating $50 million, putting them over the top.

For the last seat, Isaacman held a competition for clients of his Allentown, Pa., paymentprocessing business, Shift4 Payments.

Joining him on the flight were Arceneaux, 29, a St. Jude physician assistant who was treated at the Memphis, Tenn., hospital nearly two decades ago for bone cancer, and contest winners Chris Sembroski, 42, a data engineer in Everett, Wash., and Sian Proctor, 51, a community college educator, scientist and artist from Tempe, Ariz.

“Best ride of my life!” Proctor tweeted.

The four spent six months training and preparing for potential emergencies during the flight — but there was no need to step in, officials said after their return. During the trip dubbed Inspiration4, they had time to chat with St. Jude patients, conduct medical tests on themselves, ring the closing bell for the New York Stock Exchange and do some drawing and ukulele playing.