Four space tourists return to earth after a private flight on the poles

By Marcia Dunn

CAPE Canaveral, Florida (AP) – Four space tourists who orbits the North and South Poles returned to earth on Friday, splashing in the Pacific to end their polar visit funded by private.

Bitcoin Chun Wang investor has chartered a SpaceX flight for itself and three others in a dragon capsule that was equipped with a dome-shaped window that provided 360 degree views on polar caps and everything else. Wang refused to say how much he paid for the trip of 3 1/2 days.

The quartet, which exploded from the NASA Kennedy Space Center on Monday evening, returned from the southern coast of California. It was the first human space flight to go around the globe above the posts and the first splash of the Pacific for a space team in 50 years.

The Wang of Chinese origin, now a citizen of Malta, invited the Norwegian filmmaker Jannicke Mikkelsen, the German robotics researcher Rabea Rogge and the Australian polar guide Eric Philips, who all shared superb views during their trip.

“It’s so epic because it’s another type of desert, so it continues again and again,” said Rogge in a video published by Wang on X while watching orbit.

Mikkelsen packed the capsule with camera equipment and spent a large part of his time behind the lens.

The four suffered from space transport evil after reaching orbit, according to Wang. But when they woke up on the second day, they felt good and opened the cover of the window just above the South Pole, he said via X.

In addition to documenting the posts at 270 miles, Wang and his crew took the first medical radiographs in space as part of a test and led two dozen scientific experiences. They named their FRAM2 trip after the Norwegian sailboat which transported explorers to the poles over a century ago. A little from the wooden bridge of the original ship accompanied the crew to the space.

Their medical tests continued in Splashdown. All four came out of the capsule by themselves, lifting bags of equipment so that the researchers can see how standing the space teams are standing. They pumped their jubilation fists.

SpaceX said its decision to change Florida selving sites from this flight was based on security. The company said that the Pacific splashes will ensure that all the surviving chest pieces – dropped near the end of the flight – fall into the ocean.

The last people to return from space to the Pacific were the three NASA astronauts attributed to the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission.

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Originally published: April 4, 2025 at 1:37 p.m.