Axiom Space officials may be taking three civilians up to the International Space Station at $55 million a seat along with their own employee, but they’d prefer not to be known as a space tourism company.
“They’re not up to the paste their nose on the window,” said company president and CEO Michael Suffredini during a press conference Monday. “They really are going up there to do meaningful research and make a difference, each in their own way.”
Hitching a ride with SpaceX on a launch from Kennedy Space Center targeting March 30, the AX-1 mission is the first of four contracted flights using the Crew Dragon to bring civilians to the space station. Previous civilian visitors to the ISS have all come from Russian Soyuz flights.
