SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Around Maria Tseng’s Scottsdale home, hang pictures and mementos.
“This was his official picture,” Tseng said, pointing at a man in a NASA spacesuit holding a helmet.
It’s a picture of her late husband, Philip Chapman. The couple was married for 37 years.
“This was probably his proudest artifact,” Chapman said. “It’s a custom-made helmet. Proves that he was really an astronaut.”
Chapman, Tseng said, had space on his mind as a 12-year-old living in Australia.
His dreams led him to join MIT’s Experimental Astronomy Lab and work for NASA as the first Australian-American scientist-astronaut.
“Phil was among a candidate team of 906 people,” Tseng said. “But they selected eleven.”
Chapman was a mission scientist for Apollo 14, and he was also selected for Skylab B’s mission to space.
“When NASA canceled it, Phil was, of course, unhappy,” Tseng said.
He missed the ride of a lifetime. But his death brought another chance.
“His son Googled it and said, ‘Oh, well, here’s this memorial flights company. And at first, I thought, ‘eh, you know?” Tseng said.
But after the canceled mission, Chapman left NASA. Tseng said Chapman worked in the commercial space sector, so Celestis, Inc.’s opportunity fit Chapman’s life.
“It kind of fulfills his career goal of making commercial space real,” Tseng said.
In November, Chapman’s remains will be aboard a flight going up to space and coming back down.
Charles Chafer, Co-founder and CEO of Celestis, Inc., said it’s about a 30 to 45-minute trip from the launch, the flight reaching space, to staff retrieving the capsule out of the New Mexico desert.
Chafer said the flight will be the 18th memorial spaceflight from Spaceport America and will have about 120 memorial spaceflight participants.
Families of the participants can come to the launch site and get a tour before a memorial service. The following day, Chafer said, is when the memorial spaceflight launches.
“For us, it's very fulfilling and very honoring that we're able to give Dr. Chapman his first trip to space,” Chafer said.
After that, Chapman will also be making a second, permanent trip.
“The launch will take more than 150 of our participants on a 300 million mile cruise past Mars, where it establishes a solar orbit, which is going to be there as long as anything in the solar system is going to be there,” Chafer said.
Tseng said Chapman always was interested in the science and experiments that could have been done in space, more than the ride into space itself.
But, the second launch will be the trip for the astronaut who missed the ride of a lifetime but will get the ride for eternity.
“The second flight I feel very bad about – it going forever,” Tseng said. “But that’s what happens. At least he’ll be out there doing something he would have liked.”
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