### A Major Advancement for Commercial Space Travel: The Historic Spacewalk of the Polaris Dawn Mission
On Thursday morning, the **Polaris Dawn mission** made a remarkable stride towards the future of space exploration as two private citizens, **Jared Isaacman** and **Sarah Gillis**, briefly stepped outside their **SpaceX Dragon spacecraft**. Although they spent merely eight minutes outside the capsule, this spacewalk represented a groundbreaking success for SpaceX and a significant milestone for the emerging commercial space sector. This was the first instance of a private company, SpaceX, executing a spacewalk, highlighting the expanding potential of private space initiatives.
The mission, funded by Isaacman, ignited an intense two-year timeframe for spacesuit creation, trials, and simulations conducted by SpaceX. The triumph of Thursday’s spacewalk illustrates the company’s swift innovation and dedication to exploring the edges of human space endeavors.
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### An Historic Initial Step
Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur and enthusiastic pilot, exited the Dragon spacecraft at **6:52 am ET** (10:52 UTC) as the capsule traversed over Australia. While gazing at Earth from the edge of space, he took a moment to appreciate the breathtaking view below.
“Back home, we have much work ahead, but from this vantage point, Earth truly seems like an idyllic planet,” Isaacman stated, capturing the sense of awe that space travel inspires.
This spacewalk was not only a technical milestone but also a symbolic one, heralding the beginning of a new period where private individuals, rather than solely government astronauts, can embark into the great unknown.
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### The Sequence of the Spacewalk
Following nearly two weeks of weather-related postponements, the **Polaris Dawn mission** launched early on Tuesday aboard a **Falcon 9 rocket**. The crew, including Isaacman, pilot **Scott “Kidd” Poteet**, and SpaceX engineers **Anna Menon** and **Sarah Gillis**, achieved an altitude exceeding 1,400 km on the first day of the mission. They subsequently descended to a lower altitude to set up for the spacewalk on Thursday.
A few hours post-launch, the crew initiated a pre-breathing procedure to adapt their bodies to a diminished pressure environment. By Thursday morning, the cabin pressure inside the Dragon was lowered to **8.6 psi**, slightly higher than the pressure at the base camp of Mount Everest. The astronauts breathed pure oxygen through their suits in preparation for the vacuum of space.
The **Dragon spacecraft**, unlike the International Space Station, lacks an airlock, necessitating the depressurization of the entire cabin. This procedure took roughly 30 minutes. Once the cabin reached a vacuum, the pressure within the astronauts’ suits was decreased to **5 psi**, just under the summit pressure of Mount Everest.
Isaacman then manually opened the hatch and ascended into space, connected to the Dragon by an umbilical cord supplying oxygen and thermal control. He performed a series of tests to assess the mobility of the spacesuit, evaluating hand and body movements as well as tool usage. As the spacecraft flew over New Zealand, Isaacman took one last look at Earth below, now enveloped in darkness.
“It’s stunning,” he commented before re-entering the spacecraft.
Next, **Sarah Gillis**, a SpaceX engineer involved in the spacesuit’s development, followed Isaacman. At just 30 years old, Gillis made history as the youngest individual to walk in space. She conducted similar tests, extending much of her body outside the Dragon while secured to the umbilical cord.
By **7:58 am ET**, the spacewalk came to a close. The entire operation, spanning from depressurization to re-pressurization, was completed in just under two hours.
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### The Significance of This Event
One might question the relevance of this spacewalk, particularly when considering the first spacewalk took place nearly sixty years ago. In 1965, Soviet cosmonaut **Alexei Leonov** spent 12 minutes outside his **Voskhod spacecraft**, and since then, 263 individuals from various countries have performed spacewalks. NASA astronauts **Susan Helms** and **James Voss** even executed a spacewalk lasting almost nine hours in 2001.
So, what makes this specific spacewalk noteworthy?
The answer rests in the fact that this was not a government-backed mission; it was a privately financed and executed venture. Just as **SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket** transformed the launch sector with its rapid reusability, this spacewalk signifies a vital progression in the commercialization of space. The Falcon 9, which first took flight in 2010, has since seen four significant upgrades and now conducts over 100 launches annually, a feat that neither government nor company has accomplished before.
Likewise, this spacesuit and the technology behind it
