The Beginning of It All
On December 17, 1903, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, near a town called Kitty Hawk, Wilbur and Orville Wright made history. The brothers invented the first successful airplane. But their invention and their idea of a man in flight was largely given just a nod and a smile. At the turn of the century, America was worried more about making a living than airplanes. Then came World War I and the need for air supremacy. The airplane was more of a weapon than a mode of transportation.
Then in the 1930’s a man by the name of Howard Hughes held the belief that an airplane could be used to transport people from one place to another. The idea came to him when Charles Lindbergh flew an airplane across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927. In so doing, Lindbergh shrunk the world. He made it possible to travel from one continent to another in a matter hours and not days as required by steam ships.
In 1935, Howard Hughes built the Hughes 1-B Racer (or H-1), and it could travel an astonishing speed of 352 miles per hour. Later, the plane flew from Burbank, California, to New Jersey’s Newark Airport in just 7 hours.
Every risk these industrial icons accepted and achieved raised the bar for mankind to go a little further. When these events occurred, the Wright brothers flight, Lindbergh’s Trans Atlantic flight, Howard Hughes’ legendary aircraft designs, man did not register the historical significance of the event. Many could not imagine flying in an aircraft from New York to London; London to Geneva; or Geneva to Hong Kong. However, today, it is routine.
Since we have conquered the Earth in terms of exploration, does that mean man is done exploring? Today, the question mankind needs to ask itself is: what’s next? We seemed to have found that in Elon Musk and SpaceX.
Elon Musk and SpaceX
” We want to open up space for humanity, and in order to do that, space must be affordable.” – Elon Musk.
Elon must has always said that he wants to make science fiction, well non-fiction. In 2002, Elon Musk founded SpaceX. He founded the company on a dream of taking people to Mars. Musk had the vision to make space flight affordable. In order to do so, he had to invent the reusable rocket. He said, “If planes were not reusable, very few people would fly.”
Let’s be clear, Musk had his failures. However twice in 2009, SpaceX and Musk successfully landed a rocket on a launch pad without failure. In 2012, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launched a cargo space capsule to dock with the International Space Station (ISS), making it the first time a private craft connected with the ISS.
Then in May 2020 (after a couple additional failures), SpaceX and NASA launched astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the ISS. This was the first human mission from the United States in almost a decade (since retiring the Space Shuttle). They safely returned to Earth and landed in the Gulf of Mexico.
Inspiration4 – The Beginning of Civilian Space Travel
Inspiration4 is the first group of civilians to be launched into space. The four civilians selected for this mission are not astronauts. They are not military test pilots. They certainly are not the people we think about when watching the movie The Right Stuff. Yet, once they launched into space and broke the Earth’s atmosphere, they traveled 357 miles above Earth. The ISS is approximately 250 miles above Earth, so it provides some perspective in what these civilians accomplished.
The four civilians are: Jared Isaacman (Commander), Sian Proctor (Pilot), Christopher Sembroski (Mission Specialist), and Hayley Arceneaux (Medical Officer). These four individuals underwent approximately six (6) months of orientation and training at NASA. Then on September 16, 2021, at 02:56, they launched into space. The event was considered “the dawn of the space tourism industry.” On September 18, 2021, after 2 days and 23 hours, they successfully landed in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, completing their goals and forever altering history. Elon Musk became closer to his dream of making science fiction, non-fiction.
The Historical Impact of Inspiration4
Jeff Bezos (Amazon founder) and Elon Musk are competitors in the space industry. However, when Inspiration4 launched on September 16, Bezos not only had to give Musk his kudos, he Twitted the following statement, “Congratulations to Elon Musk and the SpaceX team on their successful Inspiration4 launch last night. Another step toward a future where space is accessible to all of us.” Jonathan O’Callaghan of MIT Technology Review wrote, “Inspiration4, as the mission is known, has been launched as a seismic moment in human spaceflight.”
Yes, Mr. Bezos and O’Callaghan got it right. This was a historical launch; a “seismic” event which history needs to pay attention. However, is this a historic event that man almost missed, much like the Wright brother’s flight or the trans Atlantic crossing of Charles Lindbergh? Yes, the public was “excited” about the Wright brothers and Lindberg, but did they really understand the historical impact? When we jump on a plan and travel far away from our home, do we think of the Wright brothers or Lindbergh? Do we recognize the contribution they made to aeronautic engineering and human travel?
I hope that Inspiration4 will not be an “event” like the flight at Kitty Hawk or the trans Atlantic crossing. There is immense potential that Elon Musk and SpaceX are bringing to the world. Let’s take a minute and recognize it for what it is worth; attempting to make science fiction, non-fiction.
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