Florida.- He told his family and some friends. He gave tips to a couple of colleagues. So hardly anyone knew that the airline pilot could have been, he should have been on board when SpaceX launched its first tourists into orbit last year.
Meet Kyle Hippchen, the true winner of a one-of-a-kind giveaway, who gave up his seat to his college roommate.
Although Hippchen’s secret is finally out, that doesn’t make it any easier to know that he missed his chance to orbit Earth because he exceeded the weight limit. He has yet to watch the Netflix series on the three-day flight purchased by a tech entrepreneur for him and three guests last September.
Read more: What was the Holocaust?
“It hurts too much,” he said. “I am incredibly disappointed. But it is what it is.”
Hippchen, 43, a captain for Delta’s Florida-based regional carrier Endeavor Air, recently shared his story with The Associated Press during his first visit to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center since missing his trip on a rocket.
He talked about his unexpected dream come true, the disappointment when he found out he exceeded SpaceX’s weight restrictions of 250 pounds (113 kilograms), and his offer to the one person he knew would treasure the flight. as well as himself. Four months later, he estimates that probably fewer than 50 people know he was the real winner.
“It was their show, and I didn’t want to be too distracted from what they were doing,” said Hippchen, who watched the launch from a VIP balcony.
His position went to Chris Sembroski, 42, a data engineer in Everett, Washington. The couple had roomed together since the late 1990s while attending Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
They would pile into cars with other space-mad students and make the hour-long drive south for NASA’s shuttle launches. They also belonged to a space advocacy group that was traveling to Washington to push commercial space travel.
Despite living on opposite shores, Hippchen and Sembroski continued to exchange space news and champion the cause. Neither of them could resist when Shift4 Payments founder and CEO Jared Isaacman raffled off a seat on the flight he bought from SpaceX’s Elon Musk. The beneficiary was St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
Hippchen took home $600 in tickets. Sembroski, about to start a new job at Lockheed Martin, paid $50. With 72,000 entries in the random drawing last February, neither thought he would win and didn’t bother to tell the other.
In early March, Hippchen began receiving vague emails seeking details about himself. That’s when he read the fine print of the contest: the winner had to be under 6 feet 6 inches and weigh 250 pounds (2 meters and 113 kilograms).
Hippchen was 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed 330 pounds (1.8 meters and 150 kilograms).
He told the organizers that he would withdraw, thinking he was just one of many finalists. In the flurry of emails and calls that followed, Hippchen was surprised to learn that he had won.
With a release planned for September, the schedule was tight. Still new to flying people, SpaceX needed to start measuring its first private passengers for their custom-made flight suits and capsule seats. As an aerospace engineer and pilot, Hippchen knew that the weight limit was a seat safety issue that could not be exceeded.
“I was trying to figure out how I could drop 80 pounds in six months, which, I mean, is possible, but it’s not the healthiest thing in the world to do,” Hippchen said.
Isaacman, the sponsor of the spaceflight, allowed Hippchen to choose an alternate.
“Kyle’s willingness to gift his seat to Chris was an incredible act of generosity,” he said in an email this week.
Isaacman introduced his passengers in late March: a St. Jude physician assistant who beat cancer there as a child; a community college educator who was the winning business client for Shift4 Payments; and Sembroski.
Hippchen joined them in April to watch SpaceX launch astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA, the company’s last crewed flight before his own.
In gratitude, Sembroski offered to bring personal items into the space for Hippchen. He gathered up high school and college rings, airline captain’s epaulettes, a great-uncle’s World War I Purple Heart, and the little things of his best friends from high school, warning, “Ask no questions.” detail”.
By launch day, September 15, word had spread. As friends and family gathered for liftoff, Hippchen said the conversation went like this: “My name is Kyle. Are you the Kyle? Yes, I’m The Kyle.”
Before boarding SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, Sembroski followed tradition and used the phone atop the launch tower to make his one assigned call. He called Hippchen over and thanked him once more.
“I am eternally grateful,” Sembroski said.
Read more: They were missing! 8-year-old girl and her parents are found DEAD inside the car
And while Hippchen couldn’t see Earth from orbit, he did experience about 10 minutes of weightlessness. During Sembroski’s flight, he joined friends and family members of the crew in a special zero-gravity plane.
“It was wonderful.”
#Sad #story #Due #overweight #lost #opportunity #fulfill #lifes #dream #travel #space #SpaceX