01x01 - Episode 1

[bunniefuu]

[Jeffrey Kluger] I like to think of it

as humanity's great taunting.

Space taunts us because

it's always there, it's always visible,

it's directly across the cosmic window.

Just on the other side of the glass

is this great expanse

that we can see, we can imagine,

but we cannot touch.

And that lure is irresistible.

Throughout human history,

the enormity of space,

the great bowl of the sky

has always inspired equal parts

reverence, awe, and mortal terror.

Space is the place

we have been striving to go

since we first looked up at the stars.

And we have actually

been going since 1957.

[newscaster] Today a new moon

is in the sky:

a 23-inch metal sphere placed in orbit

by a Russian rocket.

[JFK] We choose to go to the moon

in this decade and do the other things,

not because they are easy,

but because they are hard.

[Kluger] The competition

between the US and the Soviet Union

turbocharged the space race.

We went from a standing start,

with no human being

ever having been off the planet,

to the surface of the moon in eight years.

[Neil Armstrong] It's one small step

for man, one giant leap for mankind.

[Kluger] The Space Race 1.0

was the US and the Soviet Union.

Space Race 2.0 is suddenly

the private sector saying,

"If I have the money, and I have

the know-how, and I have the will,

I can go to space."

On July 11, we saw Richard Branson

take his space plane 50 miles high

[woman over radio] Three, two, one,

release, release, release.

[Kluger] and gave its passengers

about three and a half, four minutes

in space.

I'm an adult in a spaceship

with lots of other wonderful adults!

[man over radio] two, one.

Ignition.

[Kluger] Nine days later, Jeff Bezos

flew over 62 miles high.

They flew passengers on an 11-minute

popgun suborbital space flight.

These were not small accomplishments.

What SpaceX's Inspiration4 mission

is about to do is vastly more ambitious

and will change the game entirely.

For the first time,

four civilians are going to space.

They will orbit the Earth

for three days by themselves.

These are four non-professional astronauts

flying a spacecraft around

and around the Earth.

This is a hinge point in history,

and will kick the doors open

to space for the rest of us.

[Jared Isaacman] Inspiration4 is four

people with very different backgrounds.

Every person who's gonna join this mission

has to be able to deliver a very powerful

and inspiring story in their own right.

We represent inclusive,

diverse access to space.

There have been three

Black female American astronauts.

I will be number four.

[Hayley Arceneaux] I'll be

the youngest American to go into orbit.

Also the first pediatric cancer survivor

to go to space.

When I heard that they were offering me

a seat, I had a flood of thoughts.

There's a lot of risk.

What happens if something goes wrong?

I have a family.

What is that gonna do to her

or what's it gonna do to our daughters?

[Kluger] It is a certainty

that we will become

a multi-planet species.

And this is the next significant step

to other worlds deep beyond Earth.

And it starts now.

[dramatic orchestral music playing]

["Go Let It Out" by Oasis playing]

My name is Jared Isaacman,

I'm 38 years old.

I'm commander of Inspiration4,

first all-civilian mission to space.

Life is precocious ♪

In a most peculiar way ♪

Sister psychosis

Don't got a lot to say ♪

She go let it out ♪

She go let it out ♪

She go let it out ♪

[Jared] I do believe you only get

one crack at life.

To the extent you have the means to do so,

you have this obligation

to live life to the fullest.

You never know when

it's going to be your last day.

That kind of philosophy has taken me

from my first two flights around the world

which were both world record attempts

in 2008 and 2009.

It's taken me to flying airshows as part

of a seven-ship formation acrobatic team.

It's taken me to some interesting places

in the world, like Antarctica,

on mountain climbing expeditions.

He's definitely adventurous.

I think he would tell you

he's not a daredevil,

'cause he likes to calculate his risks,

but he is like a daredevil.

[Jared] I just know how lucky I am,

and a large part of it is because

I've had a very successful day job

running a company that's

that's afforded me these opportunities.

[reporter 1] Jared Isaacman had an idea

that is now worth

more than $50 million.

He figured out a way for businesses

to process credit cards more quickly.

[reporter 2] High school dropout

turned businessman Jared Isaacman.

You're young, you created this

great company, you make a lot of money

You know, it's about opportunity.

[reporter 3] Jared's company grew

more than 2000%.

[reporter 4] CEO Jared Isaacman

is ringing the closing bell

of the New York Stock Exchange.

Go let it out ♪

Don't let it in

Don't let it in, don't let it in ♪

Jared always, like,

kinda keeps us on our toes.

Like, usually my feelings are like,

"Oh, no. Here it comes."

[laughs] Like, what's next?

But, that's just

It's always been in him,

like, since we started dating.

[Jared] I grew up with

a pretty independent, you know, lifestyle.

If I wanted to get something done,

I was gonna do it myself.

It's a big part of, you know,

how my life ultimately shaped out.

I grew up in New Jersey, and, uh,

I think I was a horrible student,

and I wasn't, like,

happy in school, either.

So, I made the decision

I wanted to leave school early

uh, when I was 15.

There's a pretty decent age gap

between myself and my, uh,

my older siblings. They were out,

kind of enjoying their lives

and having responsibility,

and, I'm like, I gotta raise my hand

to ask permission

to use the restroom in high school.

This doesn't make sense.

So, I left high school, I took my GED.

I started the business of what

became Shift4 when I was 16.

It was like a, you know, you wake up,

you know, at 7:30, 8:00 a.m.,

then you fall asleep on the keyboard

at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning.

And you just keep doing it

over and over again.

After a couple years of doing that,

I kinda remember telling my father,

like, I'm getting burned out,

like, I gotta have something else

going on in my life right now.

From a pretty young age,

I definitely took interest in aviation.

So I went to the local airport,

and I went to the flight school there.

We went up in a Cessna 172.

This is 2004 or 2005, flying.

There's no Wi-Fi. It's super peaceful.

There's no one around to bug you

and it's, I mean, it's very therapeutic.

And when I did, I was like,

"Yeah, this is gonna be a thing now."

Once you know how to fly

a single-engine propeller plane,

you wanna fly a twin-engine

propeller plane, then you wanna fly jets.

Once you started going down

that slope, it was like,

well, what comes next?

Ex-military aircraft?

Can you fly fighter jets?

And it turns out, you can.

[dramatic music playing]

And that led to airshow teams.

[dramatic music continues]

Jared and I met at an airshow

while I was flying with the Thunderbirds.

That's my background,

20 years in the Air Force flying F16s.

And there's a lot of consistencies

and comparisons to the space world.

Jared knew he was going to space.

He just didn't know who, what,

or where, when, and how.

[woman] Start.

[man 1] T minus 15 seconds.

[Jared] 2008,

based on my interest in aviation,

I got an invitation

to watch the Soyuz go up.

- [man 1] Five, four, three, two, one.

- [woman] Prime, and lift-off.

[man 1] Lift-off of the Soyuz rocket

transporting Mike Fincke,

Yury Lonchacov, and Richard Garriott

to their home in space.

[Jared] And it was amazing.

[man 2] Flight controller standing by

for contact and capture

of the International Space Station.

[Jared] And it actually took

a space tourist up, Richard Garriott

was up on that mission.

[man] Richard Garriott launched

to the International Space Station

as a self-funded private astronaut.

So that was kind of my first

exposure to the idea that maybe

we're progressing towards

a world where it won't always

just be NASA astronauts

and Russian cosmonauts

that are going into space.

[man 2] Garriott waving goodbye

for the final time.

Twelve years later,

in 2020, I was on a call,

and I was talking to people

from SpaceX, and it was not related

to me going to space,

or any human being going to space,

it was a very unrelated conversation.

I did make a comment that, um,

"Whenever you guys are ready

to really open this thing up,

just, like, keep me in mind."

And this was like a closing comment

on a phone call. It was like,

"Well, actually we might be

a lot more ready than you might think,

and if you want, you have

the opportunity to be the first."

And I was just all over it.

[man] Our mission is

[Poteet] You know when Jared

wants to share something.

The way he says something, it's like,

"Okay, he has something to share."

We were in New York for business purposes,

and we went for a run around Central Park,

and usually, he's on his earpiece,

listening to some business podcast,

um, ignores me.

But this time he was talking.

He started to allude to the space mission,

and I didn't fully grasp

what he was talking about.

He starts talking about

how he met with SpaceX,

and this opportunity has presented itself,

and I'm like, "Is he really

talking about going to space?"

"Like, there's no way."

The more and more he explained,

the more details he provided, and I'm like

"Dude, are you going to space?"

And he's like, "Yup."

And I'm like "Holy sh*t."

In a matter of a couple weeks,

we go from Jared telling me

he's gonna do this space thing,

to here we are at SpaceX.

It was like, "This is for reals.

Dude, you're going to space."

"That's insane."

[tour guide] Um, I thought what

we would do is start out here

with this beautiful thing,

this beautiful Falcon 9 rocket.

Um, and this rocket

is a very special rocket.

Early on, there were talks that,

like, one day he'd go to space.

I mean, you don't believe it when,

like, somebody's telling you,

but I'm like, "All right, he's got dreams"

and you kinda, like, accept them.

He broke the news.

Yeah, I think the tears

definitely came down.

All you think is, "My spouse,

my husband, father of my children,

is going to space."

We don't know the risk, right?

You just automatically think, like,

"Wow, something can happen."

He's always been adventurous, so

this was just on a different level.

Okay, now everybody knows

how to launch one, and how to land one.

You've got all the secret sauce.

Don't go make your own

rocket company, okay?

[Jared] If you look at SpaceX,

their vision right from the start is,

make humankind

a multi-planetary species, because

we got a lot of eggs in one basket here.

And it didn't go really well

for the dinosaurs.

The reason I started SpaceX

was to help make life multi-planetary,

to get humanity to Mars.

The future is vastly

more exciting and interesting

if we're a space-faring civilization

and a multi-planet species

than if we are not.

And I can't think of anything

more exciting than going out there

- and being among the stars.

- [cheers, applause]

[Musk] It's important for the future of

humanity to be a multi-planet species,

so that we better understand

the nature of the universe,

and also protects against

some calamity on Earth.

The initial model of a rocket was

that it would be a use once,

throw-away machine.

Now that's a big machine to throw away.

The Saturn V rocket cost $400 million

to build and launch,

and that was in 1960s money.

And it was used a single time.

Elon saw something different.

Elon believed we can reuse these rockets.

[crowd] Five, four, three, two, one.

Liftoff!

SpaceX was the first company

to prove out reusability of rockets.

Reusability is the holy grail.

It's a profound breakthrough.

[crowd cheers]

[man] Successful separation,

we're coming up on

This was something that was

not supposed to be able to be done.

["E-Pro" by Beck playing]

[crowd cheering]

[woman] And the Falcons have landed!

[cheering continues]

[Jared] His team that he assembled,

that believe in his vision,

have done what no one

thought was possible.

It's been six years since they first

landed a rocket on a ship.

No one else has done it.

["E-Pro" continues playing]

[Musk] SpaceX today is responsible

for about two-thirds of

all of the Earth's payload to orbit

last year.

We're the only means

by which the United States

is able to get astronauts

to the Space Station.

You start flying cargo, and then you're

launching people for the first time,

and now we've done three missions

with humans on board.

[man] Welcome back to Planet Earth,

thanks for flying SpaceX.

The next chapter's definitely

to make it more and more accessible

to regular folks.

We're gonna be flying

civilians for the first time.

[Jared] Not in my zone yet.

It's hard, there's rockets

being built around me and everything.

Inspiration4 will be another change point

in the history of space travel.

[Jared] We're calling

the mission Inspiration4.

We chose this name because the principal

mission objective is to inspire.

The number four is symbolic

for several reasons.

There will be four crew members

on this spacecraft,

and it will also be the fourth

manned mission from the United States

since the space shuttle

was retired almost a decade ago.

[woman] So, guys, from this point on,

no photos will be allowed in the facility.

[Jared] I look at it

as an immense challenge.

I'm so excited to get into the books

and start getting in the simulator

and playing around with,

uh, this great engineering marvel

you guys have created here.

[Musk] We're trying to make the dream

of space accessible to anyone.

This Inspiration4 mission

helps bring awareness

of spaceflight to a lot of people,

makes it more personal.

Hopefully, as the name suggests,

it inspires people about spaceflight.

You need pioneers like Jared

in order to have the future mission

and ultimately making

science fiction not fiction forever.

- [Jared] Morning, nice to see you.

- [man] Nice to see you.

- Good! I'm Jared.

- Sarah.

- Hey, Sarah.

- Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you as well. Cool.

[man] So, we're at a very exciting

milestone with you here today, Jared,

with our kickoff.

As you know, I'm your mission manager.

Uh, as I mentioned,

we want to talk trajectory.

For this Inspiration4 mission,

the launch will actually

happen in three stages.

The Falcon rocket is called

the Falcon 9 rocket,

for the simple reason

that it has nine powerful engines

that are sufficient to accelerate

a spacecraft to orbit.

The Falcon 9 has a first stage,

has a second stage,

and stacked on top of that,

is the Crew Dragon spacecraft.

It's the place where the astronauts live,

it's the piece that will go into orbit.

When the Falcon 9 lifts off,

it will get about halfway

to orbital altitude, and the first stage

of the rocket will separate and fall away.

The second stage of the rocket

will light and accelerate

the Crew Dragon spacecraft

up to a continuous speed of about

17,500 miles an hour.

The second stage will fall away,

and the Dragon spacecraft will be

the only part that goes into orbit.

That will be the home of the crew

for the three days they're in orbit.

In order to orbit the Earth,

you have to be going at a continuous speed

of about 17,500 miles an hour.

When it's time to come home,

they turn around

and they begin to decelerate.

And it slows them down just a little bit,

so the spacecraft will descend

into the atmosphere.

A small parachute will pop out

and slow them down,

sort of a braking parachute,

then bigger parachutes will pop out,

and then they will be traveling

at just a few miles an hour,

and they will gently splash down

in the Atlantic Ocean.

[mission manager] All right.

Shall we? Nice touch to it.

- Who Who's that?

- [all laughing]

[Jared] Looks like

he knows what he's doing.

[mission manager] That guy

Jared is, um, an awesome person

to be a partner

on this first all-civilian flight.

He has a ton of experience

in flight as a pilot,

um, and does a lot of wild piloting stuff.

He also just has a great attitude.

He's a complete supporter

of our mission at SpaceX

to go multi-planetary,

and he's, uh, really

a very humble partner,

a very knowledgeable partner, as well.

[Ericson] Jared's not the guy

that's just showing up and saying,

"Hey, launch me to space."

He is fully committed and involved,

kind of the perfect guy for this.

He's got a ton of flight experience.

He has the technical ability

to understand.

[Jared] I just care that it has

that new Dragon smell.

[Reed] Yeah, it'll be

this is, this is, yeah.

What do they call it? Certified pre-owned.

[all laughing]

Jared understands that exploration

is all about pushing boundaries.

It's about going

where you haven't been before.

So that would be like keeping

an altitude roughly below 420 kilometers,

and I don't think there's any particular

or any major benefit in going above ISS.

All right, any questions?

I think it would be interesting

to maybe further explore

the option above ISS.

[Jared] I totally agree, and I guess,

just curious on Dragon Certification,

since that does go a touch above that.

Intuitively, going slightly above

would not present a problem,

but going above will start

to stretch our margins.

And there may be other problems

that I'm not aware of in other subsystems.

[man] Yeah, it's not one particular

thing, it's just opening Pandora's box.

The question really is,

"What are you looking for?"

"What's the driver

for that higher altitude?"

You know, when people have asked us

about just what we're trying to accomplish

with Inspiration4, if there is

a Jetsons' world we're all living in

and people are hopping in

their spaceship and cruising around,

at some point, it's gonna go a heck

of a lot farther than the Space Station.

So, assuming that it could be mitigated,

then, I think it is symbolic in that it is

that kind of pushing

that one step a little bit forward,

for everything else, you know, to follow.

Yeah.

This is gonna send a statement,

this is the first.

And the first comes with

a great deal of responsibility, like,

what message do we wanna send with this?

No, and that's a really fair point. And

that's part of the point of this mission.

- Yeah, we'll

- [Jared] Cool.

We'll talk more about

this one offline internally.

- [Ericson] Yeah.

- [Jared] We appreciate it

- [Ericson] For sure.

- [man] It's definitely huge.

[Ericson] Typically, a NASA mission

inserts into a 200-kilometer orbit,

but now, we're gonna go

about 575 kilometers high,

well above

the International Space Station.

If we are going to go to Mars,

taking a stride in that direction,

it is vitally important.

I think it speaks to, uh, really,

the intent of the mission, which is,

hey, to now inspire, you know,

and you inspire by doing things

that haven't been done before.

- Cool, man.

- [Ericson] See you next week.

- Yeah, see you in a week.

- All right. See you, brother.

[Ericson] What impressed me

about Jared was

that it is a heartfelt passion of his,

that he needs to do this right.

That he's setting a precedent

for all the missions to come.

[interviewer] There's been

a good amount of backlash

- to the so-called billionaires in space.

- Sure.

The criticism is

we have enough problems on Earth,

why are we spending time, energy,

and money getting off of Earth?

What's your response to that?

Yeah, I mean,

I don't think we should spend

I think we should spend

the majority of our resources

solving problems on Earth,

um, like 99% plus

of our, you know, economy should be

dedicated to solving problems on Earth,

but I think, maybe,

something like 1% or less than 1%,

could be applied

to extending life beyond Earth.

Think about a future where

we're a space-faring civilization,

and a multi-planet species, that's an

an exciting, inspiring future.

If life is just about problems, I mean,

why what's the point of living?

Space is not inexpensive,

like, we all know that.

What thoughts people

can potentially have on it

is, you know,

it's a billionaire going on a joyride,

the privileges of wealth,

to be able to go and

disregard all the, you know, uh,

that could be done here on Earth.

For me, like, anytime I've undertaken

any of these adventures in life,

there has to be some offset.

We're not gonna do this

if we can't make a huge difference

for the problems

the world's faced with today,

or we don't earn the right

to go up into space.

We gravitated right to St. Jude's

Children's Research Hospital.

[reporter] Isaacman says

this mission is much more

than fulfilling a childhood dream.

It's also a massive fundraising effort

to raise

an astonishing $200 million

for cancer research

at St. Jude Children's Hospital.

And he's writing the first personal check

for $100 million.

You definitely don't get

into my position in life

unless a couple of things

went your way at the right time.

And then you think about, well,

the extreme other end of the spectrum

is the families where nothing went right,

they got dealt a horrible hand in life,

um, and a lot of these kids in,

you know, don't even grow up

and have a chance

to experience even 1/100th, uh

of what I've had the opportunity

to experience, and it's just

it's an imbalance that's that sucks.

It's terrible.

We should do something about it.

We live? Everyone can hear us?

Good, thumbs up? All right.

I wanna welcome the two most

significant organizations

to this mission coming together

for the first time:

SpaceX, obviously, you have no means

to get to outer space

without all the great innovations and

capabilities you brought together,

and St. Jude's Children's

Research Hospital.

And why are we doing this?

To kick off what hopefully

is the most successful fundraising

and awareness campaign in history.

If we are going to eventually live

in a world

where everybody is capable of going out

and journeying amongst the stars,

then we'd better fight

childhood cancer along the way.

The other thing is, like,

the rest of the crew members

have to represent the good

we're trying to do with the mission.

We're not gonna go up

with a bunch of fishing buddies.

It's not gonna work that way.

Like, every person

who's gonna join this mission

has to be able to deliver

a very powerful and inspiring story

in their own right.

And that's where we came up

with our mission pillars.

Yeah, it might make sense

just to explain, like,

that seat selection process

and everything, you know?

We wanted a crew member to represent hope,

a crew member to represent generosity,

and a crew member to represent prosperity.

And there's my seat

to represent leadership.

We are going out and identifying

people to occupy those seats

that really represent

the best of humanity.

So, for our crew member

that represented hope,

we're teamed up so heavily with St. Jude's

Children's Research Hospital,

I can't think of anyone better

to represent the mission's spirit of hope

than a former cancer survivor who grew up

to become a healthcare professional.

And we went to St. Jude and said,

"You know, surely you might know

somebody who, you know,

who fits this profile."

We've already selected one person,

uh, who's a great humanitarian,

a first responder, you know,

a childhood cancer survivor,

treated at St. Jude, grew up

to become a healthcare professional,

and now is still in the fight at St. Jude

again helping other kids beat it.

My name is Hayley Arceneaux,

I'm 29 years old, and I'm from Louisiana,

but I live in Memphis.

- Thank you.

- [clerk] All right, have a great one.

[Hayley] Thank you.

I grew up in a really sweet,

small town called St. Francisville

in Louisiana.

[Colleen] She was very friendly,

and she loved meeting new people.

I'd always be like,

"Don't talk to strangers,

don't go home with strangers,"

I thought she would think,

"That might be a nice adventure

to go on" and I was afraid of that.

That's how friendly she was.

[Hayley] And I just had

this really happy childhood.

I was in dance, gymnastics,

and tae kwon do.

I was in tae kwon do alongside my dad.

We would go to practice

twice a week together.

And at age ten,

I'd just gotten my black belt,

and then, I was having pain in my knee,

and the doctor said, you know,

probably an overuse injury

from tae kwon do.

I took some over-the-counter meds,

stayed out of tae kwon do for a week,

felt better, um,

but then the pain started getting worse.

Well, I vividly remember the day

that I found the lump.

We were walking to the car

from school, and she was kind

of limping in the parking lot,

and I was like, "What's the matter?"

And she said,

"My knee hurts, my knee hurts."

So I said,

"I'll look at it when we get home."

She was making pancakes. She said, "Let me

look at your knee you were mentioning."

She looked at it and then she gasped.

And I remember she went over

to the fire where the pancakes were

and turned it off.

She kept saying,

"How long have you had that?"

And she pointed to this knot on my knee,

like right above my knee.

[Colleen] We went to the doctor

the next morning.

I snuck out in the hall

with the doctor, and I said,

"Could this be something serious?"

And the doctor just hugged me.

She gave me this big bear hug,

and, at that point, I just knew.

She ended up being diagnosed

with osteosarcoma,

which is bone cancer.

We returned home,

and my dad immediately looked up

osteosarcoma online

and found the St. Jude website.

In order to go to St. Jude,

they have to have a protocol

that they're studying that type

of cancer, which they were.

Hayley and I flew to Memphis.

I walked in and they had

the reception desk.

And I said, "I'm here.

My daughter is Hayl"

and I just burst into tears.

I couldn't even finish saying her name.

And I remember,

I just kind of stepped back,

and trying to compose myself,

and I feel these arms around me.

And it was the receptionist,

Miss Penny, and she whispered in my ear,

she said, "It's gonna be okay,

it's gonna be okay."

"You're part of the St. Jude family now.

We're going to take care of her,

and we're gonna take care of you too."

[Hayley] I underwent

intensive chemotherapy for almost a year,

and, I remember I asked a lot of questions

about losing my hair.

I was so worried about that.

And I remember being so worried

that my dog wouldn't recognize me.

It all started with losing little pieces

on my pillowcase.

Then it started coming out in chunks.

- I think we've been in this room before.

- We've been in all the rooms.

Yes, we've been in every room.

[Colleen] She had 12 rounds

of very intensive chemotherapy.

Her counts would drop, she wouldn't

have any immunity, and, of course,

everything made her sick.

[Hayley] I had several infections,

I needed numerous transfusions.

Midway through, I had surgery

to remove the part of my bone

that had the tumor on it.

- [Hayley] Come in.

- Hello! Hi, Hayley, how are you?

- [Hayley] Good. Here. It's numb.

- It starts to right here is numb

- But I can feel all of my foot.

- Okay.

When they removed the part of my bone

that was affected by the tumor,

they removed the growth plate.

And St. Jude had this cutting-edge

technology where they were able

to put in a prosthetic

that could be expanded

without the need for additional surgery.

And, they did that.

They expanded it five times.

Mom, I think I'm always gonna be

a centimeter longer in this leg.

Well, you're only three-fourths

of a centimeter longer right now.

- Oh!

- Yeah.

[Hayley] I was a tough kid.

I didn't cry much.

I tried to keep a really good attitude.

Hayley made an unbearable

situation bearable.

I'm trying to lift my leg

like my right leg, but, it's

I can't do that yet.

[Colleen] I had to give her

a shot every night,

and, I'd be like, "I'm sorry,"

and she'd be like, "That's okay,"

like, "Don't worry about it, it's okay."

And I always wanted to be very strong

for her to not have to do that

for her not to have to carry me along.

You're almost ready to run a race.

[Barnwell] Hayley, from day one,

wanted to make every day

better for everybody.

[Hayley] I would go up to all the donors

who were giving blood, and I would say,

"Thank you for donating.

If I didn't get blood and platelets,

I would shrivel up."

They even made me a little

St. Jude name badge that said

"Gratitude Administrator."

And I took my role really seriously,

like, I would tell people,

"I am a St. Jude employee."

She would say time and time again,

"I cannot wait to come back here

and help."

I remember thinking, "She'll do it,

if she survives this, she'll do it."

- [Hayley] My scans are clean?

- Yes.

- Yay!

- Woohoo!

["Everything's Not Lost" playing]

Come on, yeah ♪

Oh, oh, yeah ♪

Come on, yeah ♪

Everything's not lost ♪

[Hayley] My first reaction to

when I had cancer was I'm going to die.

And I haven't died.

And I'm not going to die.

Spaghetti!

I come back every two months now

for a check-up because I'm in remission.

That means the cancer is gone.

[man] Your hair looks a little different.

[Hayley] I just love St. Jude.

My dream is to be a nurse there.

Everything's not lost ♪

[Hayley] I applied for a job in 2019

with in-patient leukemia at St. Jude.

I just knew that this was my team,

these were my people.

- Hi, Hayley, how you doing?

- I'm good, how are you?

When I got that email that I got the job,

I could not stop crying.

I called my mom, and I was

just bawling crying, and she was like,

"Hayley, stop crying.

I don't know what you're saying."

And I was like, "I got a job!" [laughs]

That was the happiest moment of my life.

I'm Hayley. It's nice to meet you.

I heard a lot of really

cool things about you.

Getting to interact with these kids

and getting to show them

what their life can look like

after cancer,

it's introduced me to the best people.

You know, whenever I was younger,

I was a patient here.

I was treated for bone cancer.

Having cancer made me who I am.

[Hayley laughs]

And you can totally do this.

If I can do it, you can definitely do it.

[boy] Thank you for telling me.

[Hayley] Aw. It was so good to meet you.

You're awesome.

It definitely changed my life

for the better.

And then, in early January,

St. Jude sent me an email

saying they wanted to talk to me

about a unique opportunity.

And so I went into this phone call,

almost a little nervous.

I was just thinking,

"What are they gonna ask?"

There's two people on the call,

and one says to the other,

"All right, do you wanna explain it?

Blast off?"

And I remember going, "Blast off?"

And then,

they start telling me about Jared

and this all-civilian mission to space.

And they absolutely shocked me

when they asked if I wanted to go.

And I looked down, my hands were shaking,

I just couldn't believe it.

And then I thought, you know,

"Let me check with my mom."

Hayley called me, she said,

"Mom, you're never gonna believe that,

but it's true." She said,

"They want me to go to space."

I said, "What?"

And then I did ask her, like,

"Oh, well

how many astronauts are going?"

And that's when she said, "None."

And I said, "Why don't you call Hayden?"

Her brother,

who's the airspace engineer. I said,

"Let's see what Hayden says."

And Hayden has always been the space boy.

We went to NASA several times

over the years,

mostly because of his love for space.

He was at work that day,

and I called him and I was like,

"You've gotta go outside,

this is an emergency."

I go out and sit in this little, like, uh,

area that's separated from everyone

and call,

I Facetime her, have my Airpods in

so no one can hear, luckily.

She's like,

"I don't know how to tell you this,

but I'm going to space."

And I was like, "Space?"

"Wait, wait, you're going to space?

Aren't you a PA? What? What's going on?"

I was I was shocked.

I never thought in a million years

she would get the opportunity

to go to space, right?

And I said, "I wanna do it,"

and he said, "You should do it."

And, I emailed St. Jude

and I said, "I accept."

And I said, "I do have a couple questions.

Are we going to the moon?"

I was like, "Did you ask questions,

like, how high are you going up,

like, what's the plan?"

And she was like, "Yeah, I emailed them,

asked them, are we going to the moon?"

And I was like, "Hayley, I guarantee

you're not going to the moon."

And I was dying to tell people.

- How are you?

- [woman on computer] Good, how are you?

I'm good! I have some really big news,

but it's a secret.

- Yeah? You're freaking me out.

- [laughs] It's good news!

- Do y'all have any guesses?

- Okay, did you get promoted at work?

[Hayley] It's a lot bigger than that!

- Um

- What is it?

Okay. Winning a trip to outer space.

- Are you going?

- I'm going to outer space.

No, you're not.

[laughs]

- What? Hayley!

- I'm gonna be an astronaut.

I'm gonna know a freaking astronaut.

Dude, we're gonna know

- a freaking astronaut!

- And, of course, I want y'all to

- That is so cool!

- I want y'all to be there

- at the launch.

- Yes! I wanna be there

at the freaking launch!

[laughs]

Y'all, can y'all believe

I'm going to f outer space?

[woman on phone] No, like, our best

friend is going to space. What?

[laughs]

And then a few days later, I got

to Zoom with Jared for the first time.

He went through Inspiration4,

and, um, gave me all the information,

- answered all my questions.

- [man] Showed you where the moon was.

[laughs] He said

we were not going to the moon.

Apparently, people haven't

gone there in decades.

- No

- I learned that.

Yeah, so we had a great call,

I was feeling so good about it.

And the next week,

we were on our way to SpaceX.

["What A Difference A Day Makes" playing]

What a difference a day made ♪

Twenty-four little hours ♪

[Jared] Hayley obviously represents

our mission pillar of hope.

I told them, I said,

"I'm dying to tell my patients."

[Jared] Her official role in

the mission is she's our medical officer,

and who could be better qualified

than that? She's a physician assistant.

But she does bring

a lot more than that too.

She's got toughness.

She faced a circumstance

that could have ended very poorly,

like none of us have experienced,

you know, at ten years old.

She overcame that.

Mila, Liv, do you guys know

that Hayley is gonna be an astronaut?

- Yes.

- We're gonna go to space together.

- [Jared] Isn't that cool?

- Yeah.

I do think that in life, you should

say yes to opportunities that scare you.

[tour guide] Welcome

to the production floor!

This thing above me is

the old version of the Dragon Capsule,

but this is not the version

you're gonna fly in.

You're getting a Ferrari. Yeah.

[laughter]

At the bottom, are there engines

that are propelling us at?

What is the speed?

Roughly 25 times the speed of sound,

or 17,500 miles an hour.

- Oh, wow.

- Yeah. It's, uh, kinda crazy.

I think such a beautiful part

of life is you don't know

what's around the corner.

That's why you hold on to hope

that there's gonna be better days.

[Jared] This is where we're gonna

we're gonna live for three days.

[Hayley] Home sweet home!

And the difference ♪

You know, this is awesome.

is you ♪

We will head up to the training center,

where you'll get

your suit measurements taken.

They'll be the most in-depth

set of measurements you'll ever have.

- [woman] 5.6.

- [man] 5.6.

- [woman] 5.2.

- [man] 5.2.

[Hayley] Until this mission,

these NASA astronauts,

they've been perfect, god-like specimens.

Physically perfect, brilliant, strong

[man] And knee depth.

["The Times They Are A-Changin'" playing]

[Hayley] This'll probably be

the larger knee.

And admit that the waters

Around you have grown ♪

I'm going to space not physically perfect.

With this rod in my leg,

I would have immediately

been disqualified.

I'll be the first person

with a prosthetic body part

to go to space.

They don't know exactly how it's gonna go.

Now we're gonna find out.

Then you better start swimmin'

Or you'll sink like a stone ♪

For the times they are a-changin' ♪

[Kluger] The presumption for space travel

has always been,

"No, you are not qualified."

"It is up to you to prove to me

that you are qualified to go."

John Glenn

Jim Lovell

Neil Armstrong

Sally Ride

Mae Jemison

They were different from you and me.

But these folks, the Inspiration4 crew

these people are you and me.

I can't wait to meet

numbers three and four.

If you think about it, there are two

random people going about their lives

and 30 days from now,

they're gonna get fitted for a spacesuit.

This mission will open

a different dimension in who gets to fly.

And in that sense, this is one

of the most important missions ever flown.

For the times they are a-changin' ♪

[dramatic orchestral music playing]