CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) – After beating bone cancer, the figures of Hayley Arceneaux entering orbit on SpaceX’s first private flight must be a piece of cosmic cake.
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital announced on Monday that the 29-year-old assistant physician – a former patient hired last spring – will launch later this year alongside a billionaire who is using his acquired space flight as a charity fundraiser.
Arceneaux will become the youngest American in space – beating NASA record holder Sally Ride for more than two years – when she takes off this fall with businessman Jared Isaacman and two contest winners yet to be chosen.
She will also be the first to launch a prosthesis. When she was 10, she had surgery in St. Jude to replace her knee and get a titanium rod in her left thigh bone. She still limps and suffers occasional leg pain, but was released to fly by SpaceX. She will serve as the crew’s medical officer.
“My battle with cancer really prepared me for space travel,” said Arceneaux in an interview with The Associated Press. “It made me difficult, but I also think it really taught me to expect the unexpected and move on.”
She wants to show her young patients and other cancer survivors that “the sky is no longer the limit”.
“It will mean a lot to these kids to see a survivor in space,” she said.
Isaacman announced his space mission on February 1, promising to raise $ 200 million for St. Jude, half of his own contribution. As a self-appointed flight commander, he offered one of four SpaceX Dragon capsule seats to St. Jude.
Without alerting the team, St. Jude chose Arceneaux among the “dozens” of hospital and fundraising employees who were once patient and could represent the next generation, said Rick Shadyac, president of the St. Jude fundraising organization.
Arceneaux was at home in Memphis, Tennessee, when she received the “unexpected” call in January asking if she would represent St. Jude in space.
His immediate response: “Yes! Yea! Please! “But first she wanted to pass for her mother in St. Francisville, Louisiana. (Her father died of kidney cancer in 2018.) Then she reached out to her brother and sister-in-law, both aerospace engineers in Huntsville. , Alabama, who “assured me how safe space travel is”.
A longtime space fan who embraces adventure, Arceneaux insists that those who know it will not be surprised. She dived in a bungee swing in New Zealand and rode camels in Morocco. And she loves roller coasters.
Isaacman, who flies on hobby fighter jets, considers it a perfect choice.
“It’s not just about getting people excited to be astronauts someday, which is certainly cool,” said Isaacman, 38, last week. “It must also be about an inspiring message of what we can achieve here on Earth.”
He has two more crew members to select and plans to reveal them in March.
One will be the winner of the draw; anyone who makes a donation to St. Jude this month is eligible. So far, more than $ 9 million has come in, according to Shadyac. The other seat will go to the owner of a company using Shift4Payments, Isaacman’s Allentown, Pennsylvania, a credit card processing company.
Takeoff is scheduled for October at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, with the capsule orbiting the Earth for two to four days. He is not disclosing the cost.
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