St Jude tweeted its patients got to speak with
the four American space tourists, "asking the questions we all want to
know like 'are there cows on the Moon?'"
Billionaire Jared Isaacman, who chartered the
flight, is trying to raise $200 million for the research facility.
Inspiration4 is the first orbital spaceflight
with only private citizens aboard.
Earlier, Elon Musk's company tweeted that the
four were "healthy" and "happy," had completed their first
round of scientific research, and enjoyed a couple of meals.
Musk himself tweeted that he had personally
spoken with the crew and "all is well."
By now, they should have also been able to
gaze out from the Dragon ship's cupola - the largest space window ever built,
which has been fitted onto the vessel for the first time in place of its usual
docking mechanism.
Most humans in space
The Inspiration4 mission also brings the total
number of humans currently in space to 14 - a new record. In 2009, there were
13 people on the International Space Station (ISS).
There are currently seven people aboard the
ISS, including two Russian cosmonauts, and three Chinese astronauts on
spaceship Shenzhou-12, which is bound home after its crew spent 90 days at the
Tiangong space station.
Isaacman, physician assistant Hayley
Arceneaux, geoscientist Sian Proctor, and aerospace data engineer Chris
Sembroski are whizzing around the planet at an altitude that at times reaches
590 kilometers (367 miles).
That is deeper in space than the ISS, which
orbits at 420 kilometres (260 miles), and the furthest any humans have ventured
since a 2009 maintenance mission for the Hubble telescope.
Their ship is moving at about 17,500mph
(28,000kph) and each day they will experience about 15 sunrises and sunsets.
Their high speed means they are experiencing
time slightly slower than people on the surface, because of a phenomenon called
"relative velocity time dilation."
Apart from fundraising for charity, the
mission aims to study the biological effects of deep space on the astronauts'
bodies.
"Missions like Inspiration4 help advance
spaceflight to enable ultimately anyone to go to orbit & beyond,"
added Musk in a tweet.
The space adventure bookends a summer marked
by the battle of the billionaires Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos to reach the
final frontier.
But these flights only offered a few minutes
of weightlessness - rather than the three full days of orbit the Inspiration4
crew will experience, before splashing down off the coast of Florida on
Saturday.
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