n Monday, Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched a crew of four private astronauts, who were led by a crypto entrepreneur, on a mission to orbit the Earth from pole
to pole, marking a novel trajectory in which humans have not traveled before.
Chun Wang, a Chinese-born magnate and investors who is the founder of a bitcoin mining company is the bankroller and commander of the SpaceX mission, known as Fram2, referring to the Norwegian “Fram” ship that was the pioneer of Artic Exploration at the turn of the 20th century.
Wang and other three associates launched abroad SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule at 9;47 p.m. EDT on Monday, coming from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, starting off with theri free-flying mission for three to five days, during which they will partake in 22 research expeirmnts that are largely centered on how spaceflight and microgravity affect the human body.
On Monday, the four crew members were driven to the place of the launchpad, winding through the roads of Cape Canaveral, Florida, with the help of a police escort, as a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched overhead in an unrelated Starlink mission.
Wang wrote on a X post “We're gonna watch a rocket launch while on our way to a rocket launch,”, posting the text alongside with a video from the Falcon 9 climbing the skies to space during their drive.
This counts as SpaceX’s sixth private astronaut mission. Even more so, it is the company’s latest novel effort that expands its dominance in the global human spaceflight area. It also comes as Musk’s power as SpaceX CEO and the world’s richest man soars as he works as a close adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, a position that also has given him extraordinary influence for a businessman over an array of U.S. policy matters.
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It is also worth mentioning that Fram2 counts as the 16th crewed mission overall, using the reusable Crew Dragon. This is one of the spacecraft that SpaceX developed with NASA funding in order to provide the U.S. space agency a ride for its astronauts to and from the ISS (International Space Station).
SpaceX and its Dragon Craft have also dominated the market when it comes to private orbital spaceflight. It is also worth mentioning that Dragos is the world’s only privately built capsule routinely flying a mission in orbit, as Boeing’s Starliner capsule is held up in development, reported Reuters.
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