A Florida man won a trip to space, but gave the ticket to his college roommate because he exceeded the weight limit.
Kyle Hippchen, a Florida-based airline captain, poses for a photo in front of a SpaceX Dragon capsule at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Jan. 21, 2022. Hippchen, the real winner of a first-of-its-kind sweepstakes, gave his seat on a SpaceX flight to his college roommate. Though his secret is finally out, that doesn't make it any easier knowing he missed his chance to orbit Earth because he exceeded the weight limit.
Though Hippchen’s secret is finally out, that doesn’t make it any easier knowing he missed his chance to orbit Earth because he exceeded the weight limit. He still hasn’t watched the Netflix series on the three-day flight purchased by a tech entrepreneur for himself and three guests last September.
His seat went to Chris Sembroski, 42, a data engineer in Everett, Washington. The pair roomed together starting in the late 1990s while attending Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. They’d pile into cars with other student space geeks and make the hourlong drive south for NASA’s shuttles launches. They also belonged to a space advocacy group, going to Washington to push commercial space travel.
With a September launch planned, the timeline was tight. Still new at flying people, SpaceX needed to start measuring its first private passengers for their custom-fitted flight suits and capsule seats. As an aerospace engineer and pilot, Hippchen knew the weight limit was a safety issue involving the seats, and could not be exceeded.
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