He told his family and some friends. He left some hints to some colleagues. So almost no one knew that Kyle Hippchen, an airline pilot, could have been on the plane when SpaceX launched its first space tourists last year.
Although Hiphen’s secret was eventually revealed, he missed the opportunity to orbit the Earth because he was over the weight limit. “It hurts a lot,” he says. “I am very disappointed. “But I can not do anything about it.”
Hiphen, a pilot for Florida-based Delta Endeavor Air, shared his story with the Associated Press during his first visit to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
He replaced Chris Sebroski, a data engineer in Everett, Washington. The two have lived together since the late 1990s while attending Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. They also belonged to a space defense team, which was going to Washington to promote commercial space travel.
Despite living on opposite shores, Hiphen and Sebroski continued to exchange space news and defend the cause. Neither of them could resist when Shift4 Payments founder and CEO Jarnet Isaacman drew a seat on the flight he bought from Elon Musk of SpaceX.
Hiphen declared $ 600 worth of shares. Sebroski, ready to start a new job at Lockheed Martin, paid $ 50. 72,000 entries were collected for the draw and none of them imagined that they would win and that is why they did not bother to tell each other.
In early March, Hipphen began receiving emails asking for details about himself. Then read the small letters of the competition: The winner had to be under 2 meters and 113 kg. He was 1.8 meters and 150 kilos.
As an aerospace engineer and pilot, Hipphen knew that the weight limit was a safety issue for the seats and could not be exceeded.
“I was trying to figure out how I could lose those extra pounds in six months, which is possible, but it’s not the healthiest thing in the world,” he says.
Isaacman, the sponsor of the space flight, allowed Hiphen to choose a replacement. “Kyle’s willingness to give his place to Chris was an incredible act of generosity,” he said in an email.
Isaacman introduced his passengers at the end of March: an assistant doctor at St. Jude who defeated cancer as a child, a college teacher who was the winner of Shift4 Payments and Sebroski.
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