Billionaire Jared Isaacman talks about his historic spacewalk

A week after returning from space, Jared Isaacman is back on planet Earth and still catching up on sleep. “I think I just set a new record for lack of sleep on this five-day mission,” he laughs in a phone conversation from his home in Pennsylvania.

The fighter-jet-flying, globe-trotting billionaire took part in a historic orbital mission called Polaris Dawn in mid-September, reaching a distance of 870 miles from Earth — the highest orbit reached by a human since NASA's Apollo 17 mission in 1972. On Sept. 12, he also became the first private citizen to ever take a spacewalk — along with crew member Sarah Gillis, an engineer at Elon Musk's SpaceX, which led the mission and designed and built the brand-new spacesuits worn by Isaacman and his three crewmates.

“I didn't expect it to feel like this. In my head, I had visualized every step and in the simulators we had run through this choreography a hundred times,” Isaacman says of his experience during the spacewalk, technically known as an extravehicular activity, or EVA. “I didn't expect all of the other senses to be involved. It gets really cold, the adrenaline starts pumping, and then there's some physical exertion because this spacesuit, when it's pressurized, is very rigid. All of that comes together, plus the visual stimulus of seeing the Earth like this, and it's pretty overwhelming.”

The spacewalk was supposed to last about two hours, but the entire process took only about 90 minutes. Isaacman and his crewmates spent two and a half years training for the mission, with three-quarters of that taking up about half of each month, while the rest was spent nearly full-time on prep work. While only Isaacman and Gillis exited the vehicle — a SpaceX Dragon 2 spacecraft — all four crew members, including SpaceX engineer Anna Menon and Scott “Kidd” Poteet, a retired U.S. Air Force pilot and longtime friend of Isaacman's, donned their spacesuits as the spacecraft's cabin was depressurized.

“When I looked away from Earth, it was a different feeling than I expected. It wasn't a welcoming, peaceful feeling,” Isaacman says. “We didn't evolve to be able to survive in absolutely harsh conditions. But there's a lot out there for us and that means we have to work really hard and be well prepared if we want to go out and explore the world.”

Polaris Dawn was Isaacman's second trip to space. His first, in September 2021, was his Inspiration4 initiative, the first all-civilian mission to space. He was accompanied on that trip by Hayley Arceneaux, a physician assistant at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and two civilian astronauts flying into space for the first time, who were selected through a raffle organized by St. Jude and a contest designed by Isaacman's payments company, Shift4. The mission helped raise more than $250 million for the hospital, with $125 million reportedly coming from Isaacman and $55 million from Musk.

One of Isaacman's most poignant moments in space during the Polaris Dawn mission was when his crewmate Sarah Gillis, a classically trained violinist, played violin in the spacecraft – a moment streamed over Musk's Starlink, with her performance of “Rey's Theme” from Star Wars accompanied by orchestras from around the world in real time. “That was an emotional moment,” he says.

The scariest part? Probably re-entry, says Isaacman. “It's very different from the way up. Your blood pressure is much higher because you're so helpless. You have no control, you have to get home,” he says, laughing. “You're in this high-risk meteor debris environment. You don't know if you've taken a potentially catastrophic hit or not, so it could all be over in a second. You feel the G-forces much more strongly because your body is detrained, so everything feels more intense – like an elephant is sitting on your chest. And then the splashdown is a very small fender bender.”

ForbesMeet the new billionaire who dropped out of high school and flies fighter jets for funFrom Giacomo Tognini

Polaris Dawn is the first of three planned missions. A second, aboard a SpaceX Dragon 2, is expected in about two to three years, and a third about the same time after that. The timing of the third trip will also depend on the progress of SpaceX's massive new spacecraft and rocket system, Starship, which is designed to carry the astronauts of the third Polaris mission. Musk congratulated Isaacman on the Polaris Dawn mission on his social media platform X, posting a video of Isaacman's words during his spacewalk: “We still have a lot of work to do at home, but from here, Earth really does look like a perfect world.”

Isaacman's payments company Shift4 is also an investor in SpaceX; it invested $27.5 million in the rocket company in December 2021, when it was valued at around $100 billion. SpaceX is now valued at $208 billion after its last funding round in June. The value of Shift4's less than 1% stake in SpaceX is Forbes Analysis of the company's documents.

Isaacman and SpaceX apparently shared the cost of the Polaris Dawn mission, but did not disclose how much they spent. Some reports put the figure in the hundreds of millions of dollars. In a statement emailed to ForbesIsaacman said such figures are not accurate, but declined to elaborate on the total cost. Despite his spaceflight spending, Isaacman is still very wealthy. His estimated $1.5 billion fortune consists largely of his 25 percent stake in publicly traded company Shift4.

“For me personally, none of these endeavors have any economic benefit,” Isaacman says. “I've just been very fortunate in life and have been able to accumulate resources that I can now prioritize on issues that are close to my heart. St. Jude is obviously one of them, and opening up this final frontier is another.”

ForbesA Super Bowl ad for philanthropy: How a fighter-jet-flying billionaire is using his charitable giving to connect the first purely civilian mission into spaceFrom Giacomo Tognini

Unlike its first trip into space, which was intended to demonstrate that civilian astronauts could safely enter orbit, Polaris Dawn had more specific scientific goals. “We had three main goals. We flew very, very high up into a very hostile environment with radiation and micrometeoroid debris,” says Isaacman. “We tested new spacesuits and [spacewalk] operations, new communication methods and about 40 scientific research experiments that will serve as the basis for future long-term missions.”

Isaacman and the rest of the crew spent several days after their return with scientists monitoring their vital signs, including ultrasound scans of all vital organs, which will help the astronauts prepare for future missions. Data from the spacesuits will also help design the next generation of suits being developed by SpaceX.

Now that he's back on Earth, Isaacman is excited about his future space activities — and also concerned about the volatile environment on his home planet, especially in an election year in the U.S. “It feels like the last 10 years have been more divisive than any other time, at least in my lifetime. Every day there are almost violent debates about all the political issues and the suffering that exists in this world,” he says. “If we can just take our minds off of that from time to time and see our commonalities and see what we can achieve together, we can create a much better, brighter, more exciting future for tomorrow. There can be a balance.”