Billionaire Jared Isaacman Makes History as First Civilian to Perform Private Spacewalk
OAN Staff James Meyers
9:14 AM – Thursday, September 12, 2024
Tech billionaire Jared Isaacman became the first civilian to complete a private spacewalk on Thursday morning, after traveling the farthest from Earth a human being has gone since the Apollo moon missions.
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Footage of the wild stunt showed the 41-year-old, popping out of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule on a tether as he came face to face with the dark vacuum of space before 7 a.m.
“Back at home we all have a lot of work to do, but from here, Earth sure looks like a perfect world,” Isaacman, founder of the credit card processing company Shift4, said after emerging from the spacecraft with the planet Earth below him.
Just after 15 minutes on the spacewalk, Isaacman was replaced by SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis to go through the same motions. She was tabbed to be following two other crew members, engineer Anna Menon and former Air Force Thunderbirds pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet.
The expedition was streamed live on SpaceX’s website.
The major spacewalk was scheduled to last roughly 30 minutes, but the procedures to prepare for it and to finish it safely were expected to last about two hours.
Video revealed that before opening up the hatch and emerging, Isaacman and his three other crew members were seen waiting inside until the capsule finished depressurizing.
The extraordinary mission comes after SpaceX suddenly delayed the start of the spacewalk by a few hours. However, no explanation was immediately given for the delay, but the company said on X that “all systems are looking good.”
The crew began preparing for the mission just after going into orbit on Tuesday for a five-day flight.
They were able to stay safe during the two-hour mission thanks to the new SpaceX suits he helped design.
Officials stated that Isaacman would remain tethered and keep at least one hand or foot on the craft to ensure his safety.
However, a longer, untethered spacewalk could not take place because NASA suits are the only ones equipped with jetpacks that can guide an astronaut back to safety.
Since the Crew Dragon does not have a pressurized airlock, all the crew members had to wear the new spacesuits to help protect them from vacuum conditions during the mission.
The spacewalk took place after Isaacman and the crew reached a distance of almost 870 miles above the Earth, which is beyond the International Space Station and surpassing the Earth-lapping record set during NASA’s Project Gemini in 1966.
Meanwhile, only the 24 Apollo mission astronauts have traveled further into space.
This will be the first of three space trips for Isaacman after purchasing them from Elon Musk in 2022.
Furthermore, Isaacman was among the first group of tourists who flew to space in 2021.
During the 2021 trip, Isaacman set a record by being the first space tourist to circle the Earth without having a professional astronaut aboard.
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