Bone Cancer Survivor Joins Billionaire On SpaceX Flight

Nikki Attkisson | Last Updated : February 23, 2021

The man who defeated bone cancer recently is a physician assistant at present. He will join a billionaire on a SpaceX flight this fall. 

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, announced on Monday that the 29-year-old Hayley Arceneaux, its former patient, whom they hired in the spring as physician assistant, will join this year a billionaire who uses his flight as a charity fund-raiser. 

Bone Cancer Survivor Joins Billionaire On SpaceX Flight

Hayley Arceneaux recently beat bone cancer. At present, he plans to rocket onto the orbit on SpaceX’s first private flight to space. And according to analysts, this is going to be a true cosmic cake.

Bone Cancer Survivor Joins Billionaire On SpaceX Flight

With this, Arceneaux will be the youngest American to go to space. He beat the record of Sally Ride of NASA by two years. She too plans to blast off to space with a business magnate Jared Isaacman. They have yet to choose the other two winners of a contest who have to go with them.

Sally is the first one to go to space with prosthesis.  At 10, she had a surgery from St. Jude hospital to replace her knee. She has a titanium rod in her left thigh bone today.

She still has a slight limp and has leg pain at times. But SpaceX considers her healthy enough to rocket to orbit. She will assist the crew in the capacity of a medical officer.

According to Arceneaux, it is his battle with cancer that encouraged him to go to space. The disease taught him to expect the unexpected and go with it.

Sally, on the other hand, wants to teach young patients that even sky is not a limit. She feels that seeing a survivor on space will mean so much to children.

It was on February 1st that Isaacman announced his flight to space. He plans to raise $2000000 for St. Jude Hospital. The half of it will be his own contribution. He is the self-declared commander of the aircraft. And he has given one SpaceX dragon capsule seat to the hospital.

The hospital chose Arceneaux without notifying its staff. He is one among the hundreds of its former patients working as hospital and fund-raising employees capable of representing the future generation.

Arceneaux received the call while at home in Memphis, in January. She was asked if she could represent St. Jude in space.  She happily accepted the responsibility. Difficult to believe, she narrated the call to her mother in St. Francisville, Louisiana. After that, she contacted her brother-in-law and sister.  Both work as space engineers. And they explained to her how safe space journey is. She is an adventure-enthusiast and a fan of space. She feels that this will not be a surprise to those who know her.

Sally is familiar with the camels of Morocco and loved the bungee swing of New Zealand.

Flying fighter jets is Isaacman’s hobby. He feels that she is a great match.

According to him, Space journey is not all about getting excited to become astronauts. It is about inspiring the world we live.

He plans to add two more members to his crew. He has to select them. And he will announce it in March.

One of them will be the winner of a sweepstake. Every single donor to St. Jude is eligible for the contest.

Till now, he has received more than $9000000. The other member will be a business owner who uses shift4payment: Isaacman’s Allentown, Pennsylvania, credit card-processing company.

The space launch is targeted by October. The flight will orbit earth for up to four days.

The entrepreneur has not yet revealed the cost of the journey.


Nikki Attkisson

With over 15 years as a practicing journalist, Nikki Attkisson found herself at Powdersville Post now after working at several other publications. She is an award-winning journalist with an entrepreneurial spirit and worked as a journalist covering technology, innovation, environmental issues, politics, health etc. Nikki Attkisson has also worked on product development, content strategy, and editorial management for numerous media companies. She began her career at local news stations and worked as a reporter in national newspapers.

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