Arceneaux’s book, “Wild Ride,” is available for pre-order on Amazon and will be released on September 6, 2022. Written by her and Sandra Bark, the book will journey through her life as a childhood cancer patient at St. Jude, becoming a physician assistant at the same hospital, learning Spanish in Spain, and finally becoming the first person to fly in space with a prosthesis.
Arceneaux’s power comes from her faith and her ability to look forward in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Before she became the youngest American to go to space, she had packed a lifetime’s worth of experience into her twenty-nine years. She went to Spain to practice her Spanish and worked medical mission trips in Nicaragua and Peru, checking off five continents on her travel list before she was invited on the ultimate ride, farther than she ever dreamed she’d go. And she’s done it all with a titanium prosthesis in her leg—courtesy of treatment for bone cancer at St. Jude nearly twenty years ago.
In this riveting and deeply personal memoir, with heart and humor, Arceneaux shares the details of her Wild Ride, from the cancer experience that inspired her lifelong dream of working with childhood cancer patients to the exhilaration of being asked to join the first civilian space flight as a representative of St. Jude. From training to launch to splashdown, in never-before-told stories, Arceneaux details what it was like to climb Mt. Rainier in the snow, train in a fighter jet, battle G-forces, fly in a Dragon to space, and drink her morning cold brew while circling the globe once every ninety minutes.
Arceneaux’s uplifting story is the inspiration we all need today. She offers wisdom and courage to anyone fighting against the odds. And through it all, she reveals how resilience and faith can help us grab hold of the life we’ve always wanted and live it to the fullest.Amzon description
If you don’t know who Arceneaux is, she flew as the medical officer on Inspiration4, the first all civilian mission to space. The mission was funded by payment processing entrepreneur and adventurer Jared Issacman. The three-day mission used SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft and launched last September.
Inspiration4 opened the door for further missions, like Issacman’s Polaris program. Designed to push SpaceX, Polaris will help develop technologies and the skills to send humanity to Mars.
