Strolling among the stars, seven hundred kilometers high, somewhere above Australia and Antarctica. And without a dog to do his business. It was a historic moment in its own way when Jared Isaacman stepped out of the Dragon capsule of Space X, Elon Musk’s space company, and stretched his legs by holding on to a structure called a Skywalker, a kind of galactic walker, while making slow movements aimed at testing the mobility of the suit. Then, after a quarter of an hour, Isaacman returned inside the cabin and in his place went to get some fresh air Sarah Gillis, an engineer from Space X. The other two members of the Dragon crew, pilot Scott Poteet and Anna Menon, Sarah’s colleague, remained on board to make sure everything was running smoothly, but they were exposed to the vacuum of space since the vehicle is not equipped with an airlock.
The first private spacewalk organized by Isaacman himself was undoubtedly a success, as in exchange for the money invested in the matter he was allowed to make history by taking his first steps where the exosphere more or less begins. The purpose of the mission, called Polaris Dawn and the most important developed so far by a private company, was to test the first examples of the suits from Elon Musk’s company, white and with a futuristic look. The project to build a lunar base and a city on Mars, announced by Musk a few days ago, will in fact require thousands of bomb-proof spacesuits and it is important to develop a scalable model for future long-duration missions.
To give a sense of the extraordinary nature of the event, the altitude at which Isaacman and Gillis moved is much higher than the approximately four hundred kilometers at which the ISS, the International Space Station, the vacation home of professional astronauts, hovers. And it should also be remembered that scientists conventionally place the border between Earth and space at about 100 kilometers in altitude. And airliners fly at an altitude of 10 kilometers.
The Polaris Dawn mission launched at 11:23 a.m. EDT on Tuesday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and aims to establish the highest Earth orbit since the Apollo missions, with an apogee of about 870 miles (1,400 kilometers). As it passes through the Van Allen radiation belts, Polaris Dawn will conduct studies to better understand the effects of spaceflight and radiation on human health, which will be useful for the planned commercial development of space tourism.
The crew will also conduct several scientific experiments during the five-day mission, such as tests with contact lenses integrated with microelectronics to constantly monitor changes in eye pressure and shape, and a laser technology system for satellite communication between Crew Dragon and Starlink, SpaceX’s constellation of more than 6,000 internet-connecting satellites. The mission will conclude Sunday with a splashdown off the coast of Florida.