Ghostride the Whip
SpaceX is planning to make history by enabling the first entirely commercial spacewalk.
During this summer’s Polaris Dawn mission, a crew of four space tourists is planning to don SpaceX’s brand-new extravehicular activity (EVA) suit to venture outside of the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, giving them once-in-a-lifetime views of the Earth below.
“It’s the first commercial EVA,” said commander Jared Isaacman during a discussion on X-formerly-Twitter. “It’s the first time you don’t have government astronauts undertaking such a mission.”
“And that’s important because we are going to get to the moon or Mars someday,” he added. “We’re going to have to get out of our vehicles, out of the safety of a habitat and explore, and build and repair things.”
Open the Pod Bay Doors
Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur and trained fighter jet pilot, was the commander of the first all-civilian mission into space, which saw a crew of four circle the Earth inside a Crew Dragon spacecraft in September 2021.
The Polaris program he’s funding is made up of three upcoming missions, “culminating with the first crewed flight of Starship,” according to Isaacman.
During the upcoming mission this summer, all crew members will be wearing SpaceX’s new EVA suit, giving them the opportunity to put it to the ultimate test. That’s because the Crew Dragon doesn’t have an airlock, which means the entire cabin has to be depressurized.
“We’ll vent the cabin down to vacuum and then we will undertake an EVA operation where we hope to learn an awful lot about our suits and the operation associated with it,” Isaacman said.
But considering it’s the first spacewalk of its kind, involving a new suit that was redesigned from the ground up, it’s a big step for the Elon Musk-led venture, and could potentially pave the way for future private spacewalks like it.
The mission will also involve taking the crew higher than any humans have flown since the Apollo moon landing mission more than half a century ago, according to Space.com.
In short, this is what we should strive for when it comes to private space tourism — not some billionaire-funded rollercoaster ride that stops miles short of the edge of space.
More on the mission: SpaceX Reveals Spacesuit With Heads-Up Display Inside Helmet
Source Agencies
