French athlete Philippe Croizon, who swam the English Channel, looks skyward for his next challenge.
French athlete Philippe Croizon, who swam the English Channel, looks skyward for his next challenge.
SAINT-REMY-SUR-CREUSE, France — Ernest Bio Bogore
Elon Musk has agreed to send disabled athlete Philippe Croizon — the first quadruple amputee to swim across the English Channel — into space.
French athlete and adventurer Croizon, 52, made the request to the Tesla and SpaceX CEO. Musk promised to do so — if Croizon reached 50,000 Twitter followers before Christmas.
After reaching the milestone ahead of schedule, Croizon tagged Musk in a message on Nov. 20.
“Hello Elon Musk, I’m a famous French adventurer with no arms and legs! Send me into space to show once again that anything is possible,” tweeted The Frenchman, who now boasts nearly 56,000 followers.
That same day, Musk replied: “One day we’ll fly you aboard Starship.”
“We continued to talk a little bit in private. We exchanged contact details, and hopefully, we will continue our discussions,” Croizon said. For now, he would prefer to see “two or three other shuttles go” before donning an astronaut’s outfit.
After an electrical accident in March 1994, Croizon had both his arms and legs amputated. He was in despair — until he saw a TV interview with a channel swimmer and decided to repeat her performance. With prosthetics and serious training, Croizon achieved his goal.
In May 2012, he swam from Papua New Guinea to Indonesia with long-distance swimmer Arnaud Chassery. Croizon is also the first quadruple amputee to compete in the Dakar Rally.
Starship is just one of several space-related programs Musk is pursuing.
His SpaceX company has begun shuttling astronauts in a space capsule to the International Space Station and launching a series of satellites to create a worldwide broadband network, Zenger News recently reported.
Such entrepreneurial efforts have made Musk the second-richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of $128 billion, especially after Tesla’s market value soared, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index reports.
Musk jumps ahead of Bill Gates and falls short of Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, whose net worth reportedly stands at $182 billion, per the index.
(Edited by Fern Siegel and Matthew Hall)
(Edited by Fern Siegel and Matthew B Hall)
