Science News Roundup: SpaceX Will Make History As First All-Civil Crew Enter Orbit; The purely civilian SpaceX crew only feels “good kind” of nervousness and more before take-off

Below is a summary of the latest scientific news.

Xpeng-backed startup says it should ship flying cars in 2024

Xpeng Heitech, a flying car startup backed by electric vehicle maker Xpeng Inc., said Wednesday that it will ship flying cars to customers in 2024. The startup, which was founded in 2013 and funded by Xpeng and Xpeng CEO He Xiaopeng, now has 400 employees and will expand the workforce to 700 by the end of this year, company founder Zhao Deli told the World New Energy Vehicle Congress.

Factbox – Profiles of the first purely civilian space crew en route to orbit

The quartet of private individuals from the Inspiration4 team, which will be the first purely civilian crew to make history on board a SpaceX rocket, may seem like ordinary people at first glance, but they are anything but ordinary. They consist of an e-commerce billionaire and a jet pilot; Earth scientist and former finalist in NASA’s astronaut candidate program; Doctor’s assistant at the children’s cancer hospital, where she was once a patient; and an aerospace data engineer and veteran of the US Air Force.

SpaceX will make history with the first all-civilian crew launched into orbit

The youngest in a recent line of space-obsessed billionaires was due to take off on Wednesday with three less affluent individuals aboard a SpaceX missile ship to become the first all-civilian crew to be launched into orbit. The quartet of amateur space travelers, led by American founder and CEO of e-commerce company Shift4 Payments Inc, Jared Isaacman, was scheduled to take off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral at 8 p.m. EDT (0000 GMT). Florida.

The purely civilian SpaceX crew only feels a “good kind” of nervousness before take-off

The four would-be civil astronauts who were ready to ride a SpaceX rocket ship around the globe when the first all-civilian crew launched into orbit said they were eager to take off on the eve of their flight on Tuesday, and Just felt “the good kind” of jitters. “I was just concerned that this moment would never come in my life. Let’s go, let’s do it,” said Sian Proctor, 51, a geoscience professor, artist, and lifelong space enthusiast who was the 2009 finalist in the Astronaut NASA’s candidate program was she was cut.

(With contributions from agencies.)