Yahoo Autos Factbox-Profiles of first all-civilian space crew headed for orbit
(Reuters) -The quartet of private citizens who make up the Inspiration4 team, poised to make history aboard a SpaceX rocket ship as the first all-civilian crew launched into orbit, may appear at first glance to be everyday people, but they are far from ordinary.
They consist of a billionaire internet commerce executive and jet pilot; a geoscientist and onetime finalist in NASA's astronaut candidate program; a physician's assistant at the childhood cancer hospital where she was once a patient; and an aerospace data engineer and U.S. Air Force veteran.
The crew vehicle, dubbed Resilience, is scheduled for liftoff on Wednesday https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/science/spacex-gets-ready-launch-first-all-civilian-crew-orbit-2021-09-12 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Following are profiles of the Inspiration4 crew.
JARED ISAACMAN, 38, MISSION COMMANDER
Originator and billionaire benefactor of the Inspiration4 project, Isaacman paid an undisclosed hefty sum - reported by Time magazine to have run roughly $200 million - for all four seats aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.
A lifelong aviation enthusiast who flew in the Black Diamond civilian aerobatics jet squad and co-founded a private air force of fighter planes for military training called Draken International, Isaacman earned his fortune in e-commerce.
Isaacman parlayed the business he started as a teenager in the basement of his family's home into one of the leading U.S. financial transaction services, Shift4 Payments Inc
SIAN PROCTOR, 51, MISSION PILOT
A geoscience professor at South Mountain Community College in Phoenix with a doctorate in science education, Proctor's lifelong passion for space exploration is rooted in her father's work on Guam, where she was born, for a NASA tracking station during the Apollo lunar missions.
A licensed pilot and major in Arizona's Civil Air Patrol, she has completed four "analog" astronaut projects involving simulated space activities, including a NASA-funded four-month artificial Mars mission to study food strategies for long-duration spaceflights.
