{"id":11843,"date":"2021-02-23T21:13:13","date_gmt":"2021-02-23T13:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/cancer-survivor-named-to-spacex-flight-promoting-st-jude-hospital\/"},"modified":"2021-02-23T21:13:13","modified_gmt":"2021-02-23T13:13:13","slug":"cancer-survivor-named-to-spacex-flight-promoting-st-jude-hospital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/cancer-survivor-named-to-spacex-flight-promoting-st-jude-hospital\/","title":{"rendered":"Cancer survivor named to SpaceX flight promoting St. Jude hospital"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Haley Arceneaux will become youngest American to fly in space. Credit: St. Jude Children\u2019s Research Hospital<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A 29-year-old cancer survivor, now a physician\u2019s assistant at St. Jude Children\u2019s Research Hospital, will blast off aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule later this year for a flight dedicated to raising money for the Memphis medical center. It will be the first orbital spaceflight with no professional astronauts on board.<\/p>\n

Hayley Arceneaux, 29, who will be the youngest American to fly in space, will join three other passengers aboard a commercial flight chartered by billionaire Jared Isaacman, who arranged to purchase the launch from SpaceX. The mission is known as Inspiration4.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an incredible honor to join the Inspiration4 crew,\u201d Arceneaux said. \u201cThis seat represents the hope that St. Jude gave me and continues to give families from around the world, who, like me, find hope when they walk through the doors of St. Jude.\u201d<\/p>\n

A veteran private pilot with extensive experience in jets, Isaacman will serve as the mission commander. He is the founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments and he is giving two Crew Dragon seats to St. Jude. One seat is going to Arceneaux and the other to the winner of a contest to raise money for the famed research center, which specializes in treating children with cancer and other diseases at no charge.<\/p>\n

The fourth seat will go to an entrepreneur using Shift4 Payments to build an on-line store using the company\u2019s credit card terminals and software.<\/p>\n

Unlike NASA-chartered Crew Dragon flights and another commercial mission booked by Houston-based Axiom Space, Isaacman\u2019s flight will not visit the International Space Station. Instead, the four crew members, none of them astronauts, will blast off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center, fly around Earth for a few days and return to an Atlantic Ocean splashdown.<\/p>\n

A launch date has not yet been set.<\/p>\n

Arceneaux was a bone cancer patient at St. Jude when she was 10 years old and her treatment included implanting metal rods in the bones of her left leg. While that likely would have prevented her from ever flying on a NASA mission, it\u2019s not a barrier for a purely commercial flight.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was just 10 years old, St. Jude gave me the opportunity to grow up,\u201d she said. \u201cNow I am fulfilling my dreams of working at the research hospital and traveling around the world. It\u2019s incredible to be a part of this mission that is not only raising crucial funds for the lifesaving work of St. Jude but also introducing new supporters to the mission and showing cancer survivors that anything is possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2003, The New York Times reported, Arceneaux said \u201cwhen I grow up, I want to be a nurse at St. Jude. I want to be a mentor to patients.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, the Times reported, she was hired by St. Jude, working with children with leukemia and lymphoma. She told a recent patient, \u201cI also lost my hair. You can ask me anything. I\u2019m a former patient. I\u2019ll tell you the truth, anything you want to know.\u2019 And he said, \u2018Will you really tell me the truth?\u2019 And I said yes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arceneaux and Isaacman have visited SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, three times to make initial preparations.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s got an adventurous spirit,\u201d Isaacman said. \u201cAnd now she gets to travel to the stars, which is pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isaacman has committed to give $100 million to St. Jude. In a statement, he said his goal was to assemble a crew \u201cwhose personal stories and values will inspire people everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I\u2019ve spent time with Hayley in the earliest days of mission prep, she\u2019s everything we want our team to represent, she\u2019s interested in the world around her, devoted to caring for others and hopeful for a better future for all of us. She already inspires me, and I\u2019m certain she\u2019ll inspire many others as they get to know her in the course of our mission.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Haley Arceneaux will become youngest American to fly in space. Credit: St. Jude Children\u2019s Research Hospital A 29-year-old cancer survivor, now a physician\u2019s assistant at St. Jude Children\u2019s Research Hospital, will blast off aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule later this year for a flight dedicated to raising money for the Memphis medical center. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[524,235,1395,1045,479,1797,1545,1798],"class_list":["post-11843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-commercial-crew","tag-crew-dragon","tag-dragon","tag-elon-musk","tag-falcon-9","tag-hayley-arceneaux","tag-human-spaceflight","tag-inspiration4"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11843"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11843\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}