On September 12, the tech billionaire completed the first private spacewalk hundreds of miles above Earth. Until now, it has been a risky endeavor reserved only for professional astronauts.
Tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman teamed up with SpaceX to test the company's new spacesuits on his charter flight. In a daring spacewalk, SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillies exited the space once Isaacman was safely back inside.
This spacewalk was simple and quick—less than two hours—compared to NASA's protracted missions. Astronauts on the International Space Station often have to move around the huge complex for repairs, always traveling in pairs and lugging equipment with them. The station's spacewalk can last seven to eight hours.
Mr. Isaacman was the first to emerge from the hatch, joining a small, elite group of spacewalkers that until now included only professional astronauts from a dozen countries.
“Back home, we all have a lot of work to do. But from here the world looks perfect,” Mr. Isaacman said as the capsule lifted off over the South Pacific. The cameras on board recorded his silhouette at waist height near the hatch, under which the blue Earth was visible.
Commercial spacewalk was the main goal of the five-day mission, funded by Isaacman and Elon Musk's company, and was the culmination of years of development aimed at settling Mars and other planets.
All four on board donned new spacewalk suits to protect themselves from the harsh vacuum. They launched on September 10 from Florida, flying further from Earth than anyone since NASA's lunar rovers. The orbit was halved to 460 miles (740 kilometers) for the spacewalk.
This first spacewalk test involved stretching rather than walking. Mr. Isaacman kept a hand or foot on it the entire time, bending his arms and legs to see how the suit would hold up. The hatch had a walker-like design for added support.
About 10 minutes later, Mr. Isaacman was replaced outside by SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillies, who did the same. Ms. Gillies bounced up and down in zero gravity, no higher than her knees, as she emerged from the capsule, twisting her arms and sending reports back to Mission Control.
Each had tethers 12 feet (3.6 meters) long, but they did not unfurl or dangle at the end, unlike what happens on the space station, where astronauts typically fly into a much lower orbit.
More and more wealthy passengers are shelling out huge sums to travel aboard private rockets to experience a few minutes of weightlessness. Others have spent tens of millions of dollars to stay in space for days or even weeks. Space experts and risk analysts say it's inevitable that some will seek the thrill of spacewalks, considered one of the most dangerous parts of spaceflight after launch and re-entry, but also the most soul-stirring.
This operation was planned to the minute, with no room for error. Testing new spacesuits on a spacecraft that was going into outer space for the first time increased the risk. So did the fact that the entire capsule was exposed to the vacuum of space.
There were a few glitches. Mr. Isaacman had to manually open the hatch instead of pressing a button on board. Before setting off, Ms. Gillis said she noticed bulges in the hatch seal.
Scott “Kidd” Poteet, a former Air Force Thunderbird pilot, and SpaceX engineer Anna Menon remained strapped to their seats to watch from inside. All four underwent intensive training before the trip.
Mission controllers announced the end of the spacewalk from the company's headquarters in Hawthorne, California, in one hour and 46 minutes—or a full swing and then some around Earth.
According to SpaceX commentator Kate Tice, it happened “in the blink of an eye.”
Isaacman, 41, CEO and founder of credit card processing company Shift4, declined to disclose the amount he invested in the flight. This was the first of three flights in a program he called Polaris; this one was called Polaris Dawn. For SpaceX's first private flight of 2021, he took on competition winners and cancer patients.
Until September 12, only 263 people, representing 12 countries, had gone into outer space. It was started in 1965 by Alexei Leonov of the Soviet Union, followed a few months later by Ed White of NASA.
This story was reported by the Associated Press.
