CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A bitcoin investor who secured a SpaceX flight for himself and three polar explorers launched Monday evening on the first rocket journey to transport humans over the North and South poles.
Chun Wang, an entrepreneur originally from China, soared into orbit from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The Falcon rocket from SpaceX steered southward across the Atlantic, marking a route unprecedented in 64 years of human spaceflight.
Wang has not disclosed the amount he invested for this 3 ½-day ultimate polar escapade with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
The initial segment of their journey — traveling from Florida to the South Pole — was anticipated to last just under half an hour. From a planned altitude of approximately 270 miles (430 kilometers), their fully automated capsule is set to orbit the Earth in about 1 ½ hours, including 46 minutes to traverse from pole to pole.
Having previously visited the polar regions, Wang desires to experience them from space. He mentioned that the trip is also about “pushing boundaries, sharing knowledge” in the lead-up to the flight.
Now a resident of Malta, he is accompanied by three guests: Norwegian filmmaker Jannicke Mikkelsen, German robotics researcher Rabea Rogge, and Australian polar guide Eric Philips.
Mikkelsen, becoming the first Norwegian in space, has previously flown over the poles, albeit at a significantly lower altitude. She participated in the record-setting 2019 mission that circumnavigated the globe via the poles in a Gulfstream jet to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s moon landing.
The crew plans to conduct two dozen experiments — including the first human X-rays in space — and brought extra cameras to document their journey named Fram2, after the Norwegian polar research vessel from over a century ago.
Prior to this venture, no astronaut had journeyed beyond 65 degrees north and south latitude, a hair’s breadth from the Arctic and Antarctic circles. The first woman in space, Soviet Valentina Tereshkova, set that benchmark in 1963. Yuri Gagarin, the inaugural man in space, alongside other pioneering cosmonauts, also approached that limit, as did NASA shuttle astronauts in 1990.
A polar orbit is advantageous for climate and Earth-mapping satellites, as well as spy satellites. This is because a spacecraft can monitor the entire planet daily, orbiting from pole to pole as the Earth rotates beneath it.
Geir Klover, director of the Fram Museum in Oslo, Norway, where the original polar vessel is displayed, hopes the expedition will raise awareness about climate change and the melting polar ice caps. He provided the crew with a small piece of the ship’s wooden deck featuring the signature of Oscar Wisting, who, with Roald Amundsen in the early 1900s, was among the first to reach both poles.
Wang proposed the idea of a polar flight to SpaceX in 2023, two years after U.S. tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman made the first of two chartered flights with Musk’s firm. Isaacman is currently vying for NASA’s top position.
SpaceX’s Kiko Dontchev stated late last week that the company is continually enhancing its training processes so that “ordinary people” without traditional aerospace backgrounds can “hop into a capsule … and feel at ease about it.”
Wang and his crew perceive the polar flight as akin to camping in the wilderness and welcome the challenge.
“Spaceflight is becoming increasingly routine and, to be honest, I’m delighted to see that,” Wang expressed via X last week.
Wang has been tracking his flights since his first in 2002, covering journeys on planes, helicopters, and hot air balloons in his quest to visit every country. Thus far, he has experienced over half of them. He orchestrated the launch to coincide with his 1,000th flight.
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