Private spacewalk: Tech billionaire breaks out of SpaceX capsule

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida –

A billionaire launched the first private spacewalk on Thursday, teaming up with SpaceX for the daring venture hundreds of miles above Earth

Technology entrepreneur Jared Isaacman and his crew waited until their capsule depressurized before opening the hatch. Isaacman emerged first, joining a small, elite group of spacewalkers that previously included only professional astronauts from a dozen countries.

It was the main focus of the five-day flight, funded by Isaacman and Elon Musk's company, and the culmination of years of development aimed at colonizing Mars and other planets.

All four on board wore SpaceX's new spacesuits to protect them from the harsh vacuum. They launched from Florida on Tuesday, traveling farther from Earth than anyone since NASA's moonwalks. The orbit was reduced by half – to 740 kilometers – for the spacewalk.

This first spacewalk test, expected to last about two hours, involved more stretching than walking. The plan called for Isaacman to keep one hand or foot attached to the spacesuit the entire time while he flexed his arms and legs to see how the new spacesuit would hold up. The hatch was equipped with a walker-like structure for additional support.

After about 15 minutes outdoors, Isaacman was to be replaced by SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis to perform the same steps.

Each had 12-foot-long tethers attached, but there was no intention of unrolling them or leaving them dangling at the ends, unlike on the International Space Station, where astronauts regularly float out to perform repairs in a much lower orbit.

More and more wealthy passengers are shelling out huge sums for flights aboard private rockets to experience a few minutes of weightlessness. Others have spent tens of millions to spend days or even weeks in space. Space experts and risk analysts say it's inevitable that some will seek the thrill of a spacewalk, considered one of the most dangerous but also most exciting parts of space travel after launch and reentry.

This operation was planned down to the minute and left little room for error. Trying out new spacesuits from a spacecraft that had never done spacewalks increased the risk even more. The same was true of the fact that the entire capsule was exposed to the vacuum of space.

Scott “Kidd” Poteet, a former Air Force Thunderbird pilot, and SpaceX engineer Anna Menon remained strapped into their seats to monitor the action from inside. All four completed intensive training before the trip.

Isaacman, 41, CEO and founder of credit card company Shift4, has declined to disclose how much he invested in the flight. It was the first of three flights in a program he dubbed Polaris; this one was called Polaris Dawn. He took competition winners and a cancer survivor with him for SpaceX's first private flight of 2021.

As of Thursday, only 263 people from 12 countries had undertaken a spacewalk. The first was Alexei Leonov from the Soviet Union in 1965, followed a few months later by Ed White from NASA.

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