Jared Isaacman (from Space X Twitter)
Billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman has taken space tourism to the next level. He and his three fellow SpaceX Polaris astronauts traveled farther away from the Earth than anyone has gone since the end of the Apollo Moon missions fifty years ago. He also personally took the first ever spacewalk made by a private citizen on Thursday.
In other words, Jared Isaacman went where no private citizen has gone before.
The spacewalk officially commenced at 10:17 Greenwich Mean Time as the spacecraft began supplying pure oxygen to the astronauts’ suits. The crew, comprising billionaire Jared Isaacman, former Air Force commander Scott ‘Kidd’ Poteet, and SpaceX employees Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, then endured a tense 30-minute wait.
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“Back at home, we all have a lot of work to do, but from here, Earth sure looks like a perfect world,” he said Jared Isaacman as he exited the spacecraft.
“A huge honor to have that opportunity to test it out on this flight,” he said about the flight.
Despite setting a new record for the highest human orbit in over 50 years, Isaacman’s time in the vacuum of space was short-lived. After a few minutes, he returned to the capsule, and SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis stepped outside to perform similar mobility tests. Although Scott Poteet and Anna Menon remained inside, they were also suited up in the airless capsule. This marked the first time four astronauts had been simultaneously exposed to the vacuum of space.
SpaceX Crew (Twitter)
And there seems to be no sour grapes on NASA’s end.
NASA administrator Bill Nelson tweeted, “Congratulations Polaris Program and SpaceX on the first commercial spacewalk in history!Today’s success represents a giant leap forward for the commercial space industry and NASA’s long-term goal to build a vibrant U.S. space economy.”
Isaacman is currently commanding the Polaris Dawn mission, the first private spaceflight in a series of missions named the Polaris Program. This mission aims to conduct scientific experiments and test technologies for future space exploration.
Jared Isaacman is an American entrepreneur, pilot, philanthropist, and commercial astronaut. He is the founder of Draken International, a private air force provider and the founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments, a payment processor. As of September 2024, his estimated net worth is US$1.9 billion.
He was the commander of Inspiration4, the world’s first all-civilian mission to space, which launched in September 2021. The mission raised over $240 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
