The Inspiration4 Crew – (from left to right) Jared Isaackman, Hayley Arsenault, Sian Proctor, and Chris Sembroski – Returning Home This Weekend

The first images of the crew of the Inspiration4 mission in low-earth orbit have appeared. The flight was organized by the SpaceX company of entrepreneur Elon Musk.

In the photographs, amateur astronauts hang in zero gravity inside a space capsule, looking at the planet through the window and going about their business.

• There are only “amateurs” in space. SpaceX sent Dragon into orbit with four tourists

Billionaire Jared Isaacman and his colleagues Hayley Arsenault, Sian Proctor and Chris Sembrosky took off from the Florida launch site on Wednesday.

It is the first amateur crew to enter orbit on a commercial mission. One of the main goals of the mission is to raise $ 200 million in donations for the St. Jude Thaddeus Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, which is considered the world's largest scientific and clinical center for the treatment of cancer.

The crew climbed well above the International Space Station

Jared Isaacman paid for the flight of all four astronauts

The Dragon spacecraft lifted the astronauts to an altitude of 590 km. It is about 160 km above the orbit of the International Space Station, and 50 km above the Hubble Space Telescope.

Little has been reported about the team's activities since launch: Netflix is filming an exclusive documentary about their flight and obviously wants no spoilers.

It is known that astronauts are doing well, have adapted to weightlessness and are conducting scientific experiments.

Chris Sembroski is busy with photography

They also spoke with family and friends on Earth and conducted a session of answers to patients' questions at the St. Jude Thaddeus Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

Arsenault works as a paramedic in this hospital, she was also treated there at the age of 10 for bone cancer. And Isaacman hopes that interest in flying Inspiration4 will help raise the necessary funds.

The crew is to return to Earth on the weekend. Their capsule splashes down in the Atlantic Ocean.

If the mission succeeds, it will spur the development of space tourism, which is experiencing a resurgence after a ten-year hiatus.

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This summer, billionaire businessmen Sir Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos soared above Earth's atmosphere in spacecraft designed by their companies.

We must think that this business will not end, although space flights are still very expensive.

This is how the artist presents the Dragon capsule from the side

Who is flying the Dragon?

The ship's captain, 38-year-old Jared Isaacman, is a successful businessman and CEO of the electronic payments company Shift4 Payments, which he founded as a teenager; his fortune is estimated at about $ 2.5 billion. In addition, he is a great aviation enthusiast: he has flown thousands of hours of flights on various types of aircraft. Having paid for this mission, he nevertheless believes that space should be accessible to everyone.

The businessman recruited three people to his team, whom he had not previously met.

Hailey Arsenault, 29, is a graduate student at St. Jude Thaddeus Children's Hospital in Memphis, which is considered the world's largest scientific and clinical center for the treatment of cancer. At the age of 10, she herself underwent a course of treatment in this clinic. The goal of the expedition is to raise $ 200 million for this hospital, and therefore Isaacman decided that it would be logical if an employee of this clinic was included in the crew. “It seems that I am the first person in the world who was called on the phone and said: would you like to fly into space?” Hailey Arsenault laughs.

Dr. Sian Proctor is 51 years old. She is a geologist and popularizer of science. In 2009, she almost became a NASA astronaut, but did not make it through the last qualifying round. However, the commander took her to the team because of her entrepreneurial skills.

Chris Sembrosky, 42, is a veteran of the United States Air Force and works as an engineer for the aerospace company Lockheed Martin. He made a donation to the St. Jude Hospital Foundation and was automatically eligible for the lottery in which the seat of the fourth member of the crew was drawn. And although Sembroski did not get a lucky ticket, his friend was lucky, who won and lost his place in the cockpit of the spacecraft to Chris.