The first all-civilian crew ever to orbit the earth have blasted off on their historic mission.
The Dragon capsule containing the four citizen astronauts was launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.
The launch is the latest giant leap in a new era of commercial space travel.
One of those aboard the mission, billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, paid an undisclosed fee to SpaceX for the right to fly with three others.
During its three-day journey the capsule will orbit the earth once every 90 minutes at a speed of more than 17,000mph and an altitude of 360 miles, higher than even the orbiting International Space Station and Hubble Space Telescope.
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Isaacman conceived the mission, named Inspiration4, to raise awareness and support for a children’s cancer hospital. He has pledged $100 million personally.
One of his crewmates, Hayley Arceneaux, was diagnosed with bone cancer as a ten-year-old. Now 29 and a physicians’ assistant at that cancer hospital, she is the youngest American ever to visit space and the first with a prosthesis.
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Although the craft is being controlled remotely from the ground it does have a designated pilot aboard. Sian Proctor, once a NASA astronaut candidate, is proud of her role aboard.
“There have been three black female astronauts that have made it to space and knowing that I’m going to be the fourth means that I have this opportunity to not only accomplish my dream, but also inspire, and inspire the next generation of women and girls of colour,” she said.
One person not on board is SpaceX founder Elon Musk but the mission is being seen as the next stage of fulfilling his ambition to reach new targets in space.
“If we’re going to go to the moon again and we’re going to go to Mars and beyond we’ve got to get a little outside of our comfort zone and take that next step in that direction,” said Isaacman.
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Why billionaires are going to space
This summer has seen billionaire space tourism rivals Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos reach the edge of space in vehicles they have spent millions building.
But experts say this orbital mission, with SpaceX already the frontrunner in the business of commercial space travel, is of greater significance.
Retired NASA astronaut Ron Garan Jr, who flew missions to the International Space Station aboard the Space Shuttle, told Sky News: “There are no passengers on this mission, they’re not there for minutes, they’re there for days, they have actual mission objectives that they’re trying to achieve, so it’s an order of magnitude more challenging and more risky.
“But this is the dawn of a new era of space travel.”
And that, according to planetary scientist Tanya Harrison, is good news for everyone who wants to go to space. “It is a huge step in showing it’s not just billionaires and their employees going into space but regular people and they’re going farther than we have in decades.”
The crew have have spent five months training for the mission. If all goes according to plan the capsule is due to splash down in the Atlantic in three days.
Students, charged and released with a date in court, are here now to collect their belongings. They’re missing bags, belts, shoes, all lost in the chaos of the night before.
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From the very heart of the protest encampment, our cameras had captured the chaos.
Officers moving in. Tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse. Stun grenades to disorientate.
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They were scenes which have stirred an already fevered debate about Israel and Gaza, yes, but about much more too. About America, about policing, and about free speech too.
President Biden said yesterday: “Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations – none of this is a peaceful protest.”
‘Wrong’ say the protesters. Their movement, they say, is the very essence of protest; of civil disobedience which is threaded through US college campus history.
They reject any notion that they are threatening or violent. Yet the deeply divisive history of the Israel-Palestine conflict ensures that the beholder will so often be offended by the actions of the other side.
It was the students perceived antisemitism through their pro-Palestinian slogans which had drawn a group of pro-Israel protesters to the encampment earlier in the week.
The chaos of that night was reflected in a statement by the university’s student radio station which has been covering every twist.
“Counter protestors used bear mace, professional-grade fireworks and clubs to brutalize hundreds of our peers, UCLA turned a blind eye. Police were not called until hours into the onslaught and stood aside for over an hour as counter-protestors enacted racial, physical and chemical violence,” the statement from the UCLA Radio Managerial team said.
Watching the clear-up after the nighttime police sweep of the protesters I spotted two people embracing. A young man and an older woman.
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3:17
Professor recalls violent arrest at protest
It turned out to be a thread of history. One was a student who’d been arrested the night before.
The other was a student from a past time. Diane Salinger had been at New York’s Columbia University in 1968, at protests which now form a key chapter in American history.
“I’m so proud of these people here. I’m so proud,” she told me.
“You know the civil unrest of the students back in ’68 and it continued for several years, it actually changed the course of the Vietnam War and hopefully this is going to do the same thing.”
But then, back at the police station, a conversation that hints at the wider challenges for America.
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‘Tom’ is a protester who wanted to remain anonymous – a graduate who feels politically deserted in his own country. For him, no government is better than any on offer.
“The problem with our system is that we can’t rely on the police, we can’t rely on the military to keep us safe.
“When we need to make our voices heard, we need to make them heard, and the only way to do that without being repressed is by keeping each other safe and I think that last night and the last few months have really exemplified that,” he told me.
These protests are about more than Gaza. They are aligning a spectrum of dissent.
A scuba dive boat captain has been jailed for four years for criminal negligence over a fire that killed 34 people.
Captain Jerry Boylan was also sentenced to three years supervised release by a federal judge in Los Angeles, California.
The blaze on the vessel named Conception in September 2019 was the deadliest maritime disaster in recent American history.
Boylan was found guilty of one count of misconduct or neglect of ship officer last year.
The charge is a pre-Civil War statute, known colloquially as seaman’s manslaughter, and was designed to hold steamboat captains and crew responsible for maritime disasters.
In a sentencing memo, lawyers for Boylan – who is appealing – wrote: “While the loss of life here is staggering, there can be no dispute that Mr Boylan did not intend for anyone to die.
“Indeed, Mr Boylan lives with significant grief, remorse, and trauma as a result of the deaths of his passengers and crew.”
The Conception was anchored off Santa Cruz Island, 25 miles south of Santa Barbara, when it caught fire before dawn on the final day of a three-day voyage, sinking less than 30 metres from the shore.
Thirty-three passengers and a crew member died, trapped below deck.
Ms Wilson bought her most recent ticket at Family Food Mart in the US town of Mansfield and the shop will receive a $10,000 (£7,900) bonus for its sale of the ticket, according to the Massachusetts State Lottery.
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She bought her first $1m winning ticket at Dubs’s Discount Liquors in the same town.