Pay to play: Billionaire SpaceX passenger set for first private spacewalk

Tech billionaire Jared Isaacman blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, early Tuesday aboard a Falcon 9 rocket powered SpaceX Dragon capsule, headed out on his second, self-financed mission to space — and this time, he and a fellow passenger are aiming to become the first civilians to ever perform a spacewalk.

The 41-year-old Isaacman, who found success with a digital payment processing platform he started while still in his teens, is a licensed jet pilot who is also functioning as the mission commander for the first in a series of spaceflights that SpaceX has dubbed its Polaris program.

The five-day mission will carry its four passengers higher than any crewed flight since NASA’s Apollo missions, shooting for an altitude of 870 miles above Earth’s surface. Joining Isaacman aboard the Dragon Resilience spacecraft are former U.S. Air Force pilot Scott Poteet as well as SpaceX engineers Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon.

Hazards in space

The four civilians will encounter extra hazards on the journey as they will be exposed to high levels of radiation at their peak altitude, which falls within the inner band of the so-called Van Allen belts, a region that is rife with charged particles emitted by the sun and captured and held in place by the Earth’s magnetic forces.

The spacewalks, scheduled for Thursday, will be performed by Isaacman and Gillis, but the configuration of the Dragon capsule, which does not include an isolated exit hatch for leaving the vehicle, will expose the interior of the capsule to the vacuum of space. All four passengers will be geared up in spacesuits during the separate excursions, which will require Isaacman and Gillis to maintain handholds, along with the anchoring provided by a 12-foot tether, during their brief times outside the capsule. The extravehicular activities, which provide an opportunity to test out a new spacesuit design that Isaacman also helped fund, will occur while the Dragon capsule is at an altitude of around 435 miles.

If successful, the spacewalks will be the first to be performed by nonprofessional astronauts.

It’s the first of three trips that Isaacman bought from Elon Musk 2 1/2 years ago, soon after returning from his first private SpaceX spaceflight in 2021, according to The Associated Press . Isaacman bankrolled that tourist ride for an undisclosed sum, taking along contest winners and a childhood cancer survivor. The trip raised hundreds of millions for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The current mission is also aiming to fundraise for charitable groups.

SpaceX to the rescue

Besides creating new options for civilian journeys into space, SpaceX’s successful Dragon vehicle has become the primary workhorse for shuttling crews and cargo back and forth to the International Space Station since it became the first commercial spacecraft to dock at the station in 2012.

Dragon, developed by the Elon Musk-owned SpaceX under a NASA contract, has also taken on a new role as a rescue vehicle, following NASA’s decision to send the Boeing Starliner capsule back to Earth last week without the two-person crew that flew the ship to the space station in early June.

While veteran astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore were originally scheduled to return on Starliner after an eight-day mission, issues with the capsule’s propulsion systems and helium leaks stretched the mission out for months and eventually led NASA to keep the astronauts aboard the International Space Station, citing safety concerns with Starliner.

Williams and Wilmore will return in February aboard another Dragon capsule, which is due to launch on the SpaceX Crew-9 mission later this month. The Crew-9 mission has been modified, trimming the original four-person crew to two so there are empty seats for Williams and Wilmore to ride along on the return journey.