Michael Lopez-Alegria, a 63-year-old former NASA astronaut, is now an employee of the Axiom company, which organized the trip. He had been to the ISS before.
The other three crew members paid tens of millions of dollars each for the experiment. Larry Connor, pilot, said he was “delighted and honored” to participate in the experience but also aware of the “responsibility” of this first mission composed of “civilians”. He is preparing for “a busy week of research”. Mark Pathy is the boss of an investment company and ex-pilot Eytan Stibbe is the co-founder of an investment fund.
Novices have already visited the space station, especially in the 2000s. Last year, Russia sent a film crew there, then a Japanese billionaire. But these flew aboard Soyuz rockets, accompanied by cosmonauts. Axiom Space bought the transport from SpaceX and paid NASA for the use of its station.
The four men have a well-filled program, with 25 experiments on aging, heart health and even stem cells.
Axiom Space has an agreement for a total of four missions with SpaceX, and NASA has already formally approved the principle of a second, Ax-2. For Axiom Space, this is a first step towards an ambitious goal: the construction of its own space station.