Contest winners, health worker orbiting world in SpaceX 1st

By MARCIA DUNN
AP Aerospace Writer

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The four people on SpaceX’s first private flight are fairly ordinary, down-to-Earth types brought together by chance. Two are contest winners. One is a childhood cancer survivor who works as a physician assistant. The sponsor of the trip struck it rich with the payment-processing business he started in his parents’  basement in his teens. The four rocketed into orbit Wednesday night from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. They’ll circle Earth for three days at an unusually high altitude before splashing down this weekend off the Florida coast.