Free Republic

The crew, known as Crew 4, will be the fourth group of astronauts on the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft mission to the ISS, and Watkins hopes her voyage into space will provide inspiration for others... ...Jessica Watkins will join the crew and live aboard the ISS from next April. The Maryland-native will spend spend six months there as a mission specialist in what will be her first mission in space. ..Jessica has experience of working in astronomy-based labs, as she spent time working with the science team for the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity, while also gaining a postdoctoral fellow...

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk helped achieve the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital fundraising goal of the Inspiration4 spaceflight, just hours after his company returned the crew from orbit.... .."Count me in for $50M," Musk said in a tweet on Saturday... ...The spaceflight achieved multiple milestones, including: The first private SpaceX spaceflight, the first entirely nonprofessional crew to become astronauts, the first Black female spacecraft pilot, the youngest American astronaut to date, and the first person to fly in space with a prosthesis....