SpaceX founder and leading orbital agent Elon Musk was feeling a touch slighted by the world’s most powerful man this weekend after President Joe Biden did not acknowledge the company’s landmark Inspiration4 mission that sent four civilians on a three-day trip in orbit of our planet.
The flight was bankrolled by billionaire Jared Isaacman, who commanded the mission aboard a Crew Dragon capsule, alongside geologist Sian Proctor, data engineer Chris Sembroski and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital employee Hayley Arceneaux. The quartet splashed down safely off the coast of Florida on Saturday.
The mission served as a fundraiser for St. Jude, with over $60 million raised from the general public thus far . Isaacman also pledged $100 million and Musk added $50 million When a Twitter user asked why the president hadn’t acknowledged Inspiration4, Musk hopped into the replies.
“He’s still sleeping,” the CEO wrote, in a clear regard to Donald Trump’s favorite nickname for his former adversary, “sleepy” Joe Biden It seems fair to means , as variety of other Twitter users have, that the president may have a couple of other things on his plate at the instant , like continuing to manage the response to a worldwide pandemic, climate crisis and various national security threats.
For what it’s worth, NASA administrator Bill Nelson, a Biden appointee, did offer his congratulations to the crew multiple times Inspiration4 is that the latest during a string of pioneering space tourism missions this year. Richard Branson flew to the sting of space on the primary fully crewed flight of his Virgin Galactic spaceplane in July. Nine days later, Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos cruised a touch higher with three other passengers on his New Shepard spacecraft.
Unlike those flights, which lasted under quarter-hour each, the Inspiration4 mission was a way more complex venture that saw the four passengers performing research project during the multiple day flight as they orbited Earth over 40 times