The Inspiration4 mission has brought some of the world’s leading minds, including scientists and entrepreneurs, to contribute powerful video testimonials that encourage people to support the work of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, as part of a contest where a winner will get a seat on the historic space flight.
With the backing of SpaceX and Elon Musk’s Falcon 9 Rocket, later this year, pilot and adventurer Jared Isaacman will command the first all-civilian space mission on the Dragon Spacecraft.
Entrepreneurs, scientists, educators, artists, and other thought leaders have been sharing videos with the #inspiration4contest hashtag, as a way to encourage donations to support the vital work of St. Jude Children’s Research hospital, and to share their personal reasons why they want to be part of the mission.
The campaign took off earlier this month with entries going viral on Twitter, raising nearly $10 million in public donations so far. One entry from MedTech entrepreneur Ruben Salinas has been viewed over 1.2 million times, pledging all proceeds from his benefit company to St. Jude’s during the month of February, while advocating for educating the next generation of leaders in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) fields.
Astrophysicist and TikTok influencer Sarafina Nance has received more than 400k views with her campaign pledge on Twitter. She was joined by other influencers including Cosmic perspective founder and artist MaryLiz Bender, actor Gabriel C. Brown and author Abigail Harrison to name but a few.
With the growth in space travel expected later this decade, the first all-civilian space mission is a major milestone that captures humanity’s desire to explore beyond the confines of our planet.
Following the successful launch of the Dragon Capsule with its first manned space flight to the International Space Station in November, Elon Musk’s SpaceX is aiming to bring private citizens into space on a regular basis towards the middle of the decade.
With advances in space tech, propulsion technologies and reusable rockets, the future of space travel is about to become very interesting, and accessible to civilians for the first time.
Have you sent in your video to be one of the first to go into space?