Contest winners, health worker orbiting world in SpaceX 1st

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The four people on SpaceX’s first private flight are fairly ordinary, down-to-Earth types brought together by chance.

They’ll circle Earth for three days at an unusually high altitude — on their own without a professional escort — before splashing down off the Florida coast.

Meet the crew that’s taking space tourism to new heights following Wednesday night's launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center:

JARED ISAACMAN, SPONSOR

Isaacman struck it rich with the payment-processing business he started in his parents’ basement after quitting high school. He later went to an aeronautical university, took to the skies in fighter jets and started Draken International to provide military-style training in tactical aircraft. Space beckoned, and the Easton, Pennsylvania, entrepreneur purchased an entire flight from SpaceX to circle the Earth. The 38-year-old considers flying in air shows, his other hobby, as way more dangerous. “I don’t consider myself like a risk-taker or a thrill-seeker,” says Isaacman, whose daughters are 7 and 5. “I try to seek out what I think are interesting challenges in life and, when I can, I tether it with a very worthwhile cause.” This time it’s St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Isaacman has pledged $100 million to St. Jude and is seeking another $100 million in public donations. To drive home the message that space is for “just everyday people,” Isaacman offered one of the four capsule seats to St. Jude and held sweepstakes for the other two.

HAYLEY ARCENEAUX, ST. JUDE’S REP

Now a physician assistant at St. Jude, Arceneaux was a bone cancer patient at the Memphis, Tennessee, hospital at age 10. To save her left leg, St. Jude replaced her knee and part of her thigh bone, implanting a titanium rod. She’s the first person...