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Four private astronauts have been strapped into a centrifuge, climbing mountains and learning how to fly a spacecraft ahead of their flight to space — the first-ever crewed space mission without any “professional astronauts” on board.

The crew is preparing to launch this upcoming September as part of the Inspiration4 mission aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft. The mission, privately chartered by billionaire Jared Isaacman to support St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, recruited three crew members in addition to Isaacman for the trip which will fly around the Earth for several days. The crew includes Isaacman, St. Jude physician’s assistant and childhood bone cancer survivor Hayley Arcenaux, data engineer Chris Sembroski and geoscientist, science communicator and artist Sian Proctor.

See how we developed Hybrid rockets and launched them from high altitude balloon initially with the Huntsville Alabama L5 Society (HAL5)‘s High Altitude Lift-Off (HALO) Program and later with our High Altitude Research Corporation (HARC). See our Balloon Launch Return Vehicle (BLRV) and our HARC Cheap Access to Space (CATS) Prize rocket. Hear some of our war stories from these adventures. A balloon launched rocket is known as a rockoon.

Watch next week for a related interview, The Inside Scoop on Virgin Galactic with Tim Pickens.

You can support Galactic Gregs by supporting the sister channel Green Gregs by clicking the links below:
For your space habitat garden buy worms at greengregs.com!
See the Special Deals at My Patriot Supply (great space mission food): www.PrepWithGreg.com.
For gardening in your space habitat (or on Earth) Galactic Gregs has teamed up with True Leaf Market to bring you a great selection of seed for your planting. Check it out: http://www.pntrac.com/t/TUJGRklGSkJGTU1IS0hCRkpIRk1K

3D-printed parts can make rocket engines lighter, less expensive and more efficient.

At Marshall, we’re working with our industry partners to test the latest advances in additive manufacturing technologies:


NASA is partnering with Aerojet Rocketdyne to advance 3D printing technologies, known as metal additive manufacturing, and its capabilities for liquid rocket engines in landers and on-orbit stages/spacecraft.

WASHINGTON — A Japanese billionaire best known for buying a SpaceX Starship flight around the moon will go to space first on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station, two months after a Russian actress and director visit the station.

Space tourism company Space Adventures and the Russian space agency Roscosmos announced May 13 that Yusaku Maezawa will fly to the ISS on the Soyuz MS-20 mission launching Dec. 8 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. He will be accompanied by a production assistant, Yozo Hirano, on the 12-day flight, commanded by Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin.

“We are excited for Maezawa-san, and we are honored to have enabled this opportunity for him to fly to space,” Eric Anderson, chairman and chief executive of Space Adventures, said in the statement.