Polaris Dawn represents a significant milestone for space tourism. SpaceX’s recent mission, which was financed by billionaire Jared Isaacman, has accomplished several feats that were previously only achievable by major space agencies. In this case, they were accomplished by a private company with a rich customer determined to venture farther into space.
During the first two days of the Polaris Dawn mission, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon “Resilience” spacecraft reached an altitude that no manned flight had reached since the Apollo missions to the Moon more than fifty years ago. However, this was just the beginning.
On the third day of the flight, specifically on Sept. 12 at 5:52 a.m. ET / 3:52 a.m. PT, Isaacman became the first person to venture into outer space during a spacewalk conducted by a private company. SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis was the second and last person to exit. However, all four crew members of Polaris Dawn participated in the activity because the spacecraft had to be fully depressurized.
They accomplished this when the Dragon spacecraft was flying 455 miles above Earth, putting it over Australia. This is a higher altitude than all the spacewalks conducted in Earth’s orbit throughout history, from the first spacewalk by Aleksei Leonov in the Soviet spacecraft Vostok to the latest by astronauts on the Chinese Space Station, which orbits the Earth at an altitude of 264 miles.
Isaacman and Gillis only spent eight minutes climbing the ladder that separated them from the void, but their live-streamed climb was an unprecedented success for the private aerospace industry and a transformative event for the concept of space tourism.
Polaris Dawn has involved two years of intense development for SpaceX, with most resources dedicated to its new EVA suits. The small Crew Dragon lacks an airlock, so pressurized spacesuits were necessary for all crew members, including the two who didn’t enter through the hatch.
The spacesuits worked as planned, and SpaceX used the test to gather various data to continue improving their design. Isaacman and Gillis performed several suit mobility tests during their short spacewalk to test the suits’ joints.
The four crew members of Polaris Dawn were connected to the spacecraft by umbilicals that controlled temperature and provided them with pure oxygen to breathe. They had spent a couple of days acclimating to pressures as low as those at the summit of Mount Everest before SpaceX sent the command to depressurize the cabin fully.
Everything was meticulously rehearsed. SpaceX trained the four crew members in the same way it trains NASA or European Space Agency astronauts who are going to fly to the International Space Station (ISS) in a Dragon spacecraft. In fact, this was Gillis’ job at SpaceX before she took part in the mission and met Isaacman during the Inspiration4 mission.
In this regard, the Polaris Dawn crew conducts tests and dozens of experiments, risking their lives with something no private company has ever done. So, can they be considered space tourists? Isaacman not only funded the mission, but he also commanded the spacecraft himself and was the first to leave the hatch.
There’s no doubt that Polaris Dawn has laid the groundwork for the future of low-Earth orbit with the help of the U.S. authorities. As NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said, “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.”
Tourism and commercial activities are the future of low-Earth orbit. The ISS has five years left, and NASA wants to give up that space to private space stations already being built by companies around the world. For-profit companies will offer their microgravity laboratories to pharmaceutical companies, industries, and, of course, tourists.
Millionaires will continue to go where only space agencies have gone before, while NASA, China, and their partners dedicate themselves to colonizing the Moon as a stepping stone to Mars. This is the plan. Isaacman’s image of him leaning out of a ladder and flying more than 400 miles above the Earth was just the beginning.
Image | SpaceX
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