St Jude Children’s Research Hospital announced on Monday that the 29-year-old physician assistant – an elderly patient hired last spring – will launch later this year along with a billionaire who is use the purchased space light as a charity fundraiser.
Arceneaux is set to become the youngest American in space – defeating NASA astronaut Sally Ride by more than two years – when she exploded this fall with entrepreneur Jared Isaacman and two others. still won a competition.
Meet commercial astronaut Hayley Arceneaux. She is an amazing person & I know she will be an inspiration to people… https://t.co/hrsjjkgxQ8
– Jared Isaacman (@rookisaacman) 1613993190000
She is also the first to launch with a prosthesis. When she was 10, she underwent surgery at St. Jude to replace her knee and get a titanium rod in her left bone. She still limpes and suffers from occasional leg pain, but was cleared for flight by SpaceX. She will be the medical officer for the team.
“My battle with cancer really prepared me for space travel,” Arceneaux said in an interview with The Associated Press. “It made me sad, and then also I think it taught me to be expect the unexpected and get in the way. ”
She wants to show her young patients and cancer survivors that “the sky is not even lower.”
“This is going to mean so much for these children to see someone who came out of space,” she said.
APHayley Arceneaux was at home in Memphis, Tennessee, when she received the “out of the blue” call in January asking if she would represent St. Jude in space.
Isaacman announced his February 1 space mission, promising to raise $ 200 million for St. Jude, half of which he himself contributed. As the self-employed commander of the flight, he offered one of the four SpaceX Dragon capsule sets to St. Jude.
Without warning the staff, St. Jude chose Arceneaux among the “scores” of hospital and fundraising staff who were once patients and could represent the next generation, said Rick Shadyac, president of St. Jude’s fundraising group.
Arceneaux was at home in Memphis, Tennessee, when she received the “out of the blue” call in January asking if she would represent St. Jude in space.
Her immediate response: “Yes! Yes! Try!” But first she wanted to run past her mother in St. Louis. Francisville, Louisiana. (Her father died of kidney cancer in 2018.) Next she reached out to her brother and sister-in-law, both aerospace engineers in Huntsville, Alabama, who “gave me confidence in the safety of travel place. ”
As a lifelong adventurer who embraces adventure, Arceneaux urges those who know her not to be surprised. She has fallen on a bungee swing in New Zealand and rides camels in Morocco. And she loves roller-coasters.
Isaacman, who flies fighter jets for recreation, thinks she’s perfectly fit.
“Not everyone has the right to make people become fascinated by being astronauts at some point, which is really cool,” Isaacman, 38, said last week. “It should also be about an inspiring message about what we can achieve here on Earth.”
Two more members of his team are to be chosen, and he plans to announce them in March.
One of them will be the winner of sweepstakes; anyone who donates to St. Jude this month is eligible. To date, more than $ 9 million has been raised, according to Shadyac. The other chair will go to a business owner who uses Shift4Payments, Isaacman’s Allentown, Pennsylvania, a credit card processing company.
Liftoff is centered around Oct. at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, with the capsule orbiting the Earth for two to four days. It does not reflect the cost.