THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX is set to launch 4 people on a first-of-its-kind mission around Earth’s poles.

A crew of four passengers — led by a cryptocurrency billionaire — is set to launch aboard a SpaceX capsule that will carry them over the Earth’s poles, marking the first time humans have flown such a mission.

The group is slated to lift off from a launchpad in Florida during a 4.5-hour window that opens at 9:46 p.m. ET Monday.

Malta-based investor Chun Wang is financing the mission, which was dubbed Fram2 after a Norwegian ship that carried key expeditions to the North and South poles around the turn of the 20th century.

Wang made his fortune with bitcoin mining operations, and he paid SpaceX an undisclosed sum of money to conduct this mission. Joining him are three polar explorers whom Wang met through his Earth-bound travels: Norwegian film director Jannicke Mikkelsen, German robotics researcher Rabea Rogge and Australian adventurer Eric Philips.

No one on the crew has ever traveled to space.

Godspeed.

Just a few years ago it was almost unimaginable that a mission like this one would be commercial.