Three private citizens pay $55 million each to fly to space station

Three private citizens will pay $55 million each for an eight-day stay on the International Space Station (ISS).

Houston-based Axiom Space on Tuesday announced its crew for the flight scheduled for January 2022 or later. The crew will be aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule to fly to the ISS. The plan is still subject to approval from NASA and its international partners.

Former NASA astronaut and Axiom Vice-President Michael López-Alegría will be commander of the mission. The three private crew members have passed physical exams and will conduct 150 days of training to prepare for the mission.

The three crew members are Ohio real estate and tech entrepreneur Larry Connor as pilot, Canadian investor Mark Pathy and Israeli businessman Eytan Stibbe.

According to Axiom’s press release, López-Alegría flew to space four times over a 20-year career at NASA and last visited the ISS in 2007. He holds the record for having done the most space walks. He will become the first person to ever command both a civil and a commercial human space flight mission.

Connor, 70, will be the first private-mission pilot in spaceflight and the second oldest person flying into space. Pathy will be Canada’s 11th astronaut. Stibbe is a former Israeli Air Force pilot and a close friend of the late Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli astronaut, who died on the space shuttle Columbia during its re-entry accident in 2003. Stibbe will be the second Israeli astronaut.

The crew will live aboard the US segment of the ISS for eight days, participating in research projects.

Connor will collaborate with the Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic on research projects. Pathy is collaborating with the Canadian Space Agency as well as the Montreal Children’s Hospital to help identify health-related research projects that could be undertaken during the mission.

Stibbe plans to conduct scientific experiments of Israeli researchers and entrepreneurs coordinated by the Ramon Foundation and the Israel Space Agency. He also wants to undertake educational activities from orbit to inspire Israeli children, youth and educators.

NASA had tried to fly private citizens in the past under the “Spaceflight Participant” program, and US senators Jake Garn and Bill Nelson had taken a trip to space. However, after teacher Christa McAuliffe died in the space shuttle Challenger explosion in 1986, NASA canceled the program.

The crew of the Axiom flight told The Washington Post that they were well aware of the risks and were taking the flight seriously.

“There will definitely be some resistance” to the private crew members on the flight, López-Alegría told the Post. “I think it’s our job to win them over. We can do that certainly by being as prepared and expert as possible.”

Established in 2016, Axiom Space is seeking to be a full-service orbital mission provider for private and national astronauts. It plans to do two flying missions a year beginning in 2022.

Axiom Space is constructing its own privately funded space station that will be attached to the Harmony node of the ISS beginning as early as 2024. When ISS retires, the Axiom Station will separate to form the world’s first free-flying, privately developed, internationally available space station.