Bone cancer survivor to join billionaire on SpaceX flight - Associated Press

(AP) — After beating bone cancer, Hayley Arceneaux figures rocketing into orbit on SpaceX’s first private flight should be a piece of cosmic cake.

Arceneaux will become the youngest American in space — beating NASA record-holder Sally Ride by over two years — when she blasts off this fall with entrepreneur Jared Isaacman and two yet-to-be-chosen contest winners.

“My battle with cancer really prepared me for space travel,” Arceneaux said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Isaacman announced his space mission Feb.

Jude chose Arceneaux from among the “scores” of hospital and fundraising employees who had once been patients and could represent the next generation, said Rick Shadyac, president of St.

Jude in space!

(Her father died of kidney cancer in 2018.) Next she reached out to her brother and sister-in-law, both of them aerospace engineers in Huntsville, Alabama, who “reassured me how safe space travel is.”.

A lifelong space fan who embraces adventure, Arceneaux insists those who know her won’t be surprised.

Liftoff is targeted around October at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, with the capsule orbiting Earth two to four days