<p>A college science professor and an aerospace data analyst were named on Tuesday to round out a four-member crew for a SpaceX launch into orbit planned later this year billed as the first all-civilian spaceflight in history.</p>.<p>The two latest citizen astronauts were introduced at a news briefing livestreamed from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida by SpaceX human spaceflight chief Benji Reed and billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, who conceived the mission in part as a charity drive.</p>.<p>Isaacman, founder and CEO of e-commerce firm Shift4 Payments, is forking over an unspecified but presumably exorbitant sum to fellow billionaire and SpaceX owner Elon Musk to fly himself and three others into orbit aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.</p>.<p>The flight, scheduled for no earlier than Sept. 15, is expected to last three to four days from launch to splashdown.</p>.<p>"When this mission is complete, people are going to look at it and say this was the first time that everyday people could go to space," Isaacman, 38, told reporters.</p>.<p>Dubbed Inspiration4, the mission is designed primarily to raise awareness and support for one of Isaacman's favourite causes, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, a leading pediatric cancer center. He has pledged $100 million personally to the institute.</p>.<p>Assuming the role of mission "commander," Isaacman in February designated St. Jude physician's assistant Haley Arceneaux, 29, a bone cancer survivor and onetime patient at the Tennessee-based hospital, as his first crewmate.</p>.<p>Announced on Tuesday, Chris Sembroski, 41, a Seattle-area aerospace industry employee and U.S. Air Force veteran, was selected through a sweepstakes that drew 72,000 applicants and has raised $113 million in St. Jude donations.</p>.<p>Sian Proctor, 51, a geoscience professor at South Mountain Community College in Phoenix, Arizona, and entrepreneur who was once a NASA astronaut candidate, was chosen separately through an online business contest run by Shift4 Payments.</p>.<p>All four will undergo extensive training modelled after the curriculum NASA astronauts use to prepare for SpaceX missions.</p>.<p>The Inspiration4 mission may mark a new era in spaceflight, but it is not the only all-civilian crewed rocket launch in the works.</p>.<p>British billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic enterprise is developing a spaceplane to carry paying customers on suborbital excursions.</p>.<p>SpaceX plans a separate launch, possibly next year, of a retired NASA astronaut, a former Israeli fighter pilot and two other people in conjunction with Houston-based private spaceflight company Axiom Space.</p>.<p>Musk also intends to fly Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa around the moon in 2023. Fees charged for those flights will help finance the development of Musk's new, heavy-lift Starship rocket for missions to the moon and Mars.</p>.<p>Inspiration4 is about more than a billionaire's joyride through space, organizers say, promising the crew will conduct a number of as-yet undetermined science experiments during its brief voyage.</p>
<p>A college science professor and an aerospace data analyst were named on Tuesday to round out a four-member crew for a SpaceX launch into orbit planned later this year billed as the first all-civilian spaceflight in history.</p>.<p>The two latest citizen astronauts were introduced at a news briefing livestreamed from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida by SpaceX human spaceflight chief Benji Reed and billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, who conceived the mission in part as a charity drive.</p>.<p>Isaacman, founder and CEO of e-commerce firm Shift4 Payments, is forking over an unspecified but presumably exorbitant sum to fellow billionaire and SpaceX owner Elon Musk to fly himself and three others into orbit aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.</p>.<p>The flight, scheduled for no earlier than Sept. 15, is expected to last three to four days from launch to splashdown.</p>.<p>"When this mission is complete, people are going to look at it and say this was the first time that everyday people could go to space," Isaacman, 38, told reporters.</p>.<p>Dubbed Inspiration4, the mission is designed primarily to raise awareness and support for one of Isaacman's favourite causes, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, a leading pediatric cancer center. He has pledged $100 million personally to the institute.</p>.<p>Assuming the role of mission "commander," Isaacman in February designated St. Jude physician's assistant Haley Arceneaux, 29, a bone cancer survivor and onetime patient at the Tennessee-based hospital, as his first crewmate.</p>.<p>Announced on Tuesday, Chris Sembroski, 41, a Seattle-area aerospace industry employee and U.S. Air Force veteran, was selected through a sweepstakes that drew 72,000 applicants and has raised $113 million in St. Jude donations.</p>.<p>Sian Proctor, 51, a geoscience professor at South Mountain Community College in Phoenix, Arizona, and entrepreneur who was once a NASA astronaut candidate, was chosen separately through an online business contest run by Shift4 Payments.</p>.<p>All four will undergo extensive training modelled after the curriculum NASA astronauts use to prepare for SpaceX missions.</p>.<p>The Inspiration4 mission may mark a new era in spaceflight, but it is not the only all-civilian crewed rocket launch in the works.</p>.<p>British billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic enterprise is developing a spaceplane to carry paying customers on suborbital excursions.</p>.<p>SpaceX plans a separate launch, possibly next year, of a retired NASA astronaut, a former Israeli fighter pilot and two other people in conjunction with Houston-based private spaceflight company Axiom Space.</p>.<p>Musk also intends to fly Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa around the moon in 2023. Fees charged for those flights will help finance the development of Musk's new, heavy-lift Starship rocket for missions to the moon and Mars.</p>.<p>Inspiration4 is about more than a billionaire's joyride through space, organizers say, promising the crew will conduct a number of as-yet undetermined science experiments during its brief voyage.</p>