A billionaire and an engineer made history yesterday morning when they became the first private crew to perform a spacewalk.
Billionaire Jared Isaacman and SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis unlocked the hatch of their capsule and took a short stroll, which the space company webcast live.
With four people onboard, SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission reached a record distance of 870 miles above Earth—farther than anyone has traveled since the Apollo moon programs 50 years ago.
What did they do?
Isaacman exited the capsule first at roughly 7 a.m. ET and climbed up the “skywalker,” essentially a ladder, clad in SpaceX’s new spacesuits, which had never been tested before. The spacecraft’s hatch was open for nearly two hours, and everyone had to wear their spacesuits because the spacecraft doesn’t have an airlock.
The walk lasted 20 minutes.
The crew also sent messages, pictures and videos to Earth using the internet from the Starlink satellites.
More experiments studying human adaptation to space will be conducted in the four-day mission that began on Tuesday.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX wants to commercialize space travel. Before yesterday, only government astronauts had performed spacewalks. With the successful stroll around the cosmos, the company has taken a leap forward in developing the commercial space industry.