Hayley Arceneaux, cancer survivor and youngest American to fly to space

Cancer survivor Hayley Arceneaux, on Wednesday, became the youngest American to fly to space and the first person to ever fly to space with a prosthesis, when she took off in SpaceX’s first private flight into orbit – mission Inspiration4 . The four-member crew included two contest winners, a health care worker and their rich sponsor. This was the first all-civilian mission to Earth orbit.

The ‘space tourists’ are looking to spend three days going round and round the planet from an unusually high orbit — 100 miles (160 kilometers) higher than the International Space Station — before splashing down off the Florida coast this weekend.

Amoung the four is Hayley Arceneaux, 29, a childhood bone cancer survivor who works as a physician assistant where she was treated — St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Isaacman has pledged $100 million out of his own pocket to the hospital and is seeking another $100 million in donations. Arceneaux has a titanium rod in her left leg.

Also read: SpaceX launch: Purpose of ‘Inspiration4’ mission in a nutshell

Arceneaux was diagnosed with bone cancer after noticing some pain in her leg as a child. She and her family recounted the diagnosis in the real-time docu-series currently airing on Netflix about the mission, called “Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space.”

 “I was just overwhelmed with how honored I felt, I was mind-blown. I just can’t believe that it’s happening to me,” she said ahead of the flight, as per spce.com, referring to the records she was going to create. 

“We actually went to NASA just a few months before I was diagnosed with cancer. I got to see where the astronauts trained, and I think every kid looks at that and wants to be an astronaut.”

Also read: Difference between space flights of Branson, Bezos and Musk

“I have a metal rod in my leg from when they saved my leg, and so I never thought I’d be an astronaut,”  she told Space.com in an interview.

Arceneaux and the fellow Inspiration4 members will call the children being treated at St. Jude from space. The mission aims to raise $200 million for the hospital. 

“It’s going to be so fun for our kids to see somebody who is in their same shoes, getting to grow up and accomplish their dreams and then knowing that they can do the same,” the 29-year-old said.