‘INSANELY DISAPPOINTED’

SpaceX Winner Gives Seat Away to Friend Because of Weight Limit

“I was trying to figure out how I could drop 80 pounds in six months, which, I mean, it’s possible, but it’s not the most healthy thing in the world to do.”

Kyle Hippchen, 43, spent $600 on sweepstakes entries to win a seat aboard a SpaceX flight into orbit before he realized he was 80 pounds too heavy to fly. The Florida-based airline pilot was among the more than 72,000 people who entered into the random drawing, so he’d initially resigned himself to a low chance of winning. However, organizers began reaching out about his physicality, so he assumed he was a finalist and asked to pull out since he was over the 250-pound weight limit for passengers. “I was trying to figure out how I could drop 80 pounds in six months, which, I mean, it’s possible, but it’s not the most healthy thing in the world to do,” he said. The flight’s sponsor allowed Hippchen to pick a stand-in, and so he chose Chris Sembrowski, his college roommate at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in the 1990s. “It hurts too much,” Hippchen told the AP this past week. “I’m insanely disappointed, but it is what it is.”