Billionaire Leads Earth's First Commercially-Funded Spacewalk

A billionaire and an engineer on Thursday became the first non-government astronauts to conduct a spacewalk. The mission was one of the riskiest yet for Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Jared Isaacman exited the Crew Dragon capsule at around 7am. He is the CEO of Shift4 Payments. He was joined by SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis. Their spacewalks lasted for 10 minutes.  

After the spacewalk, Isaacman declared: “Back at home we all have a lot of work to do, but from here — looks like a perfect world.” 

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson hailed the crew for the mission.

He called it "a giant leap forward." He added it fits into NASA's long-term goals. 

The mission featured new-look spacesuits. They were slimmer than the suits worn by NASA astronauts. It also featured a spacecraft without an airlock. That's a chamber with airtight doors. It allows astronauts to leave the craft while the rest of the crew remains in a pressurized, oxygen-filled cabin.     

That means the two other crew members also had to wear space suits. Engineer Anna Menon and pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet were exposed to space while strapped to their seats in the craft. All four crew members were fed oxygen through cords attached to the ship. In the past, astronauts had relied on oxygen backpacks.  

The four astronauts had to wait for the ship to repressurize and bring oxygen levels back to normal before they could remove the suits. Musk sees a future where SpaceX makes tens of thousands of space suits for future missions to Mars.  

The Polaris Dawn crew is scheduled to return to Earth on Sunday.  

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Photo of crew members of Polaris Dawn, Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis, from Reuters.