Abstract
Until very recently, space travel has remained the remit of professional astronauts or the fabulously wealthy. I say recently, because in 2021, a mission was launched that changed that narrative forever. Inspiration 4 was a mission comprised of private citizens. Other spaceflight participants had made their way to space, but always under the supervision of professional astronauts and a sponsoring agency such as NASA or Roscosmos. What set the Inspiration4 mission apart was that the crew became the first to complete an orbital mission with no government agency supervision.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Seedhouse, E. (2024). Orbital Missions. In: Commercial Astronauts. Springer Praxis Books(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-55604-3_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-55604-3_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-55606-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-55604-3
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)