News Video: Weekly Topics for Discussion
News Video for: 09/20/2021

All-amateur astronaut crew returns from orbit

After three days in orbit, SpaceX’s Inspiration4 flight returned safely Saturday with its crew of four civilians – a billionaire who paid for the trip, a physician assistant who survived childhood cancer, a professor who was once a finalist to become a NASA astronaut and a data engineer who was selected from among donors to St. Jude’s Children's Research Hospital. It was the first “space tourist” flight without a professional astronaut aboard. But, the crew did train for six months before boarding the highly advanced and automated spacecraft.

Class discussion: If you had a chance to fly a spacecraft into orbit, would you? Why or why not? Do you think you may ever realistically get a chance? Besides paying for the flight, billionaire Jared Isaacman, 38, also contributed $100 million to St. Jude’s. What do you think of Isaacman, a high school dropout who made his fortune with a tech company he started at 16? What about physician assistant Hayley Arceneaux, 29, a childhood St. Jude’s patient who now works at the hospital? Do you draw any inspiration from this flight and its crew of amateurs?

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Common Core State Standard
L.CCS.1/2/3/4 Grades 6-12: Video of a current news event is presented for discussion to encourage student participation, but also inspire the use of evidence to support logical claims using the main ideas of the video. Students must analyze background information provided about a current event, draw out the main ideas and key details, and review different opinions on the issue. Then, students should present their own claims using facts and analysis for support.