Prepare for the ultimate Christmas snap: SpaceX hopes to complete the first-ever spacewalk later this year with a civilian crew of space tourists. The Polaris Program, as announced by SpaceX, will “show new technologies, perform substantial research, and ultimately culminate in the first flight of SpaceX’s Starship with humans on board.” Jared Isaacman, the billionaire who led the first all-private-citizen crew to orbit in 2021 and has signed up for three more private spaceflight missions with SpaceX, is among those expected to participate in the voyage.
Although no exact launch date has been set, the first mission, Polaris Dawn, is expected to launch in the fourth quarter of 2022. The objective is to launch a Dragon capsule from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida onto a Falcon 9 rocket to a higher orbit than any previous Dragon mission. The crew will stay in orbit for up to five days, during which time they will undertake the first-ever commercial spacewalk, in which astronauts leave the capsule and “float” freely in space (presumably/hopefully, tethered).
The astronauts will also take part in a study on the effects of spaceflight on the human body and test Starlink’s laser-based communications in space on top of this dangerous mission. The Dragon spacecraft will provide free WiFi this time, just as Musk promised following the Inspiration4 mission in September 2021.
Isaacman will be joined by Scott “Kidd” Poteet, a retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, and two SpaceX employees, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, on three more trips. According to the New York Times, Isaacman has refused to reveal how much he is paying for the flights, but he has stated that they would collect money for St.
Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Tennessee, much as the first all-civilian fight did in September 2021. Since Soviet cosmonaut Aleksey Leonov was sent into Earth orbit and disembarked his spacecraft, becoming the first human to walk in space in March 1965, there have been hundreds more spacewalks.
According to NASA, there have been 246 spacewalks outside of the International Space Station as of February 15, 2022, despite several spacewalks from other space stations and ships. All of these daring missions, however, were carried out by experienced and well-trained astronauts. If SpaceX’s civilian spacewalk is a success, it will be another brave stride forward for space tourism, as well as a nightmare for insurers.
