This Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2021 photo provided by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital shows Hayley Arceneaux at the hospital in Memphis, Tenn. On Monday, Feb. 22, 2021, the hospital announced that the 29-year-old physician assistant — a former patient hired the previous spring — will launch later this year alongside a billionaire who’s using his purchased spaceflight as a charitable fundraiser.
Arceneaux will become the youngest American in space — beating NASA record-holder Sally Ride by over two years — when she blasts off this fall with entrepreneur Jared Isaacman and two yet-to-be-chosen contest winners.She’ll also be the first to launch with a prosthesis. When she was 10, she had surgery at St. Jude to replace her knee and get a titanium rod in her left thigh bone. She still limps and suffers occasional leg pain, but has been cleared for flight by SpaceX.
Without alerting the staff, St. Jude chose Arceneaux from among the “scores” of hospital and fundraising employees who had once been patients and could represent the next generation, said Rick Shadyac, president of St. Jude’s fundraising organization.
Probably not the same Hayley Arceneaux I used to see around Rockville Center.
inspiration4x Wonderful!😇💫❤
Um has she been watching them try to land rockets?
pretty sure they were the youngest actually 🤨
Don’t care, all these rockets pollute the atmosphere.
WOW!
Does no one remember the last PR space mission involving civilians? smh
Congratulations!
I'll have to show this to my 14 yr old who is also a bone cancer survivor. This is awesome! morethan4 cancersucks cancermom
Oh look. The billionaires didnt like the negative press so they hired a marketing team.
Always a billionaire no matter. Good luck to the young woman.
So cool, I am very happy for her. Being a cancer survivor myself I will be cheering as she takes off into space.
Isn’t there someone else already the youngest American in space?
StJude Congrats
jeff_foust And the flight will have a highly qualified medical professional on board (speaking as a PA and former PA educator). Wish I could go! AAPAorg
Perfect catalyst for the billionaires to trst gamma ray effects on the voulnerable. She's a guinea pig at this point.
Awesome
Cool, but desn't space travel weaken bones? She has a lot of variables.
Who cares?!
jeff_foust So awesome spacex is the best thank elon for giving us all a chance to go to space.
Very cool. Congrats Hayley
When we take a look at who benefited from covid, the CCP would be on top. Covid really changed the US & world politics. The Democrats and their MSM (NYT, WaPo, CNN,) lackeys took this once in a century opportunity to take down Trump. The virus was made in a CCP lab.
jeff_foust Cool.
We want a new visualization of Mars
Billionaire could have spent more money on cancer research and healthcare. Yes, I've read the article and I know Jared Isaacman has donated $100 million. But he has the net worth of $2.4 billion and he could have donated more.
She's getting in the whole meaning to life that she never had before...