On May 5, 2022, SpaceX’s Manned Dragon spacecraft “Endurance” can be seen on NASA’s Crew-3 mission.
NASA
Private polar expeditions are reaching a new level: space.
Cryptocurrency speculator Wang Chun bought SpaceX multi-day flights The company’s amount was undisclosed declare on Monday are scheduled to lead the first manned space mission in polar orbit, linking end-to-end above the Earth.
Called “Fram2”, it is an ode to the 19th century polar exploration ship Fram. mission It is planned to launch by the end of this year. It will fly aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and use its thrice-flyed Crew Dragon capsule, called “Endurance” — a fitting coincidence that three years ago a NASA crew member named Explorer The ship is named after Sir Ernest Shackleton’s famous ship.
For this mission, Wang invited three Arctic experts to join him: Jannicke Mikkelsen, 38, a Norwegian film producer; , 62 years old, Australian explorer and guide; Rabea Rogge, 28 years old, German researcher.
“I’ve been interested in space since I was very young…This is the first time that a private individual can plan and design his own very personal mission,” Wang told CNBC.
Wang, 42, was born in Tianjin, China, but is now from the Mediterranean island nation of Malta and became a citizen last year. Wang said he met his fellow crew members while living on the northern Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard and described himself as a “nomad” who has visited more than 100 countries in the past few years.
While the cost of manned spaceflight is no longer the exclusive domain of superpower governments, multi-day missions are still only achievable by ultra-high-net-worth individuals.
SpaceX does not announce prices for its crewed missions, although the company did disclose the price tags for launching satellites. NASA has previously revealed that it paid About $55 million per seat The Crew Dragon spacecraft means that the cost of a manned mission exceeds $200 million.
Wang confirmed “I paid for this mission” but declined to disclose the exact amount.
Wang has kept a low profile aside from showing off his travels around the world on social media, and his unspecified net worth appears to be mostly, if not exclusively, tied to his work mining cryptocurrency.
Wang said on LinkedIn that he mined 7,700 Bitcoins in two years, a figure that would be about $450 million at current prices. He also said that he is a co-founder of F2Pool, a decentralized collective that claims to help generate cryptocurrencies. The organization said that in the past 11 years, it has mined more than 1.3 million Bitcoins worth more than 76 billion Dollars in today’s dollars.
Mixon, a neighbor of Wang’s in the Svalbard town of Longyearbyen, said she was shocked when she went from being a friend to a future astronaut.
“I absolutely didn’t believe Chun when he randomly texted me,” Mixon told CNBC.
Wang said his Fram2 mission proposal to SpaceX was Historic Private Inspiration4 Flight 2021.
Like Inspiration 4, the spacecraft will be equipped with a skylight and will remain in orbit for three to five days. Mixon said the Fram2 crew also plans to conduct a variety of studies, including studying the upper atmosphere, specifically observing “aurora debris” above Earth, and analyzing the effects of spaceflight on the human body.
The crew, which completed its own “extreme environment” training in Alaska a month ago, began training with SpaceX this week and hopes their flight furthers the idea that space is becoming more accessible. Mixon said she wanted to do more than just “make a documentary” but “make an immersive piece so you can experience it like you did in Dragons.”
“We’re trying to open the door wider and make people feel like everyone can have their own very personal mission in space,” Wang added.
