SpaceX’s Crew Dragon “Endurance” capsule is seen during NASA’s Crew-3 mission on May 5, 2022.
NASA
Private polar expeditions reach a new level: space.
Cryptocurrency speculator Chun Wang bought SpaceX multi-day flight For an undisclosed sum, the company announced It was announced On Monday, with plans to lead the first manned space mission in polar orbit, flying end-to-end above the Earth.
It is called “Fram2”, in homage to the 19th century Arctic exploration ship Fram, a task The spacecraft is scheduled to launch later this year. It will fly aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and will use a Dragon capsule that has flown three times and is called Endurance — a fitting coincidence, since NASA crews named the spacecraft after the famous explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship three years ago.
For the mission, Wang invited a trio of Arctic specialists to join him: Jannik Mikkelsen, 38, a Norwegian filmmaker; Eric Phillips, 62, an Australian explorer and guide; and Rabia Ruge, 28, a German researcher.
“I was interested in space from a very young age… For the first time, an ordinary person can plan and design a very personal mission of their own,” Wang told CNBC.
Wang, 42, was born in Tianjin, China, but now hails from the Mediterranean island of Malta, having become a citizen last year. Wang said he met his crewmates while living in Svalbard, Norway’s northernmost archipelago, and describes himself as a “nomad,” having visited more than 100 countries in the past few years.
Although the cost of human spaceflight has fallen from the realm of superpower governments, the multi-day mission is still only available to the very wealthy.
SpaceX doesn’t disclose the price of its manned flights, though the company does disclose the cost of launching satellites. NASA has previously revealed that it pays about $55 million per seat to carry astronauts on Dragon, which would put the cost of a manned flight at more than $200 million.
Wang confirmed that he “paid for this mission,” but declined to specify the amount.
Aside from showing off his travels around the world on social media, Wang has maintained a low profile and his unspecified net worth appears to be mostly, if not entirely, tied to his cryptocurrency mining business.
On LinkedIn, Wang says he mined 7,700 bitcoins over two years, worth about $450 million at current prices. He also says he was the co-founder of F2Pool, a decentralized group that describes itself as helping to mine cryptocurrencies — and the organization says it has mined more than 1.3 million bitcoins in the past 11 years, worth more than $76 billion at today’s prices.
Mikkelsen, Wang’s neighbor in the Svalbard town of Longyearbyen, said she was shocked when she went from friend to future astronaut.
“I didn’t believe Chun at all when he sent me a random text message,” Mikkelsen told CNBC.
Wang said his proposal to SpaceX for the Fram2 mission came after the historic private Inspiration4 flight in 2021.
As with Inspiration4, the spacecraft will have a “dome” window mounted on it and will spend three to five days in orbit. The Fram2 crew also plans to conduct a variety of research, including studying the upper atmosphere — specifically looking at “shards of aurora” above Earth, Mikkelsen said — as well as analyzing the effects of spaceflight on the human body.
The crew began training with SpaceX this week, after undergoing “extreme environment” training in Alaska a month ago, and they hope their trip will reinforce the idea that space is becoming more accessible. Mikkelsen said she hopes to do more than “just shoot a documentary,” but to create “an immersive production, so you can also experience it as if you were on Dragon.”
“We’re trying to open the door wider and make people feel that everyone can have a very personal space mission,” Wang added.
