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\n From left, Scott Poteet, Anna Menon, Sarah Gillis, and Jared Isaacman are set to conduct the first private spacewalk. Gillis and Isaacman will exit their Dragon capsule float above the Earth in new spacesuits from the commercial spaceflight company SpaceX.<\/p>\n
John Kraus\/Polaris Program<\/p>\n
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A SpaceX rocket lifted off early Tuesday <\/strong>morning carrying four astronauts who hope to conduct the world\u2019s first commercial spacewalk. The launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida marks the beginning of one of SpaceX\u2019s highest-stakes missions yet.<\/p>\n\n
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If all goes as expected, in a matter of days, Internet entrepreneur Jared Isaacman and SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis will be the first private astronauts to exit their spacecraft to float above the Earth in spacesuits. They\u2019ll be treated to a majestic view of the planet that\u2019s only been seen by professional astronauts working on official missions from their space agencies.<\/p>\n
But experts warn there\u2019s plenty that could go wrong. Spacewalking carries unique risks compared to traveling inside a capsule or visiting the International Space Station. This mission will use several components that have never been tested in space before, including the spacesuits themselves. And it will require skill and cool-headed thinking from the astronauts involved, three of whom have never been to space at all.<\/p>\n\n<\/aside>\nConducting a spacewalk like this is a \u201crisky adventure,\u201d acknowledges Bill Gerstenmaier, SpaceX\u2019s vice president of build and flight reliability, who previously headed NASA\u2019s human spaceflight operations.<\/p>\n
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But he insists that the company is ready: \u201cWe\u2019re going to do it as safely as we can, and we\u2019ve got the right protocols and we\u2019ve done the right testing to get ready to go,\u201d Gerstenmaier told reporters at a press briefing last month.<\/p>\n
A giant leap, for a price<\/h3>\n The mission, known as Polaris Dawn, is a giant leap for commercial space travel. To date, most space tourists have either taken a brief suborbital journey that provides a few moments of weightlessness, or (for significantly more money) traveled to the International Space Station. Isaacman spent a few days in 2021 orbiting earth in a SpaceX capsule.<\/p>\n
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\n A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon Resilience capsule, carrying the crew of the Polaris Dawn Mission, lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Chandan Khanna\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
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He\u2019s now paid an undisclosed sum of money for this mission, which is the first of three scheduled as part of the Polaris program. Isaacman had floated the idea of the second mission being used to service the Hubble Space telescope, but NASA recently said the agency would not pursue it at this time because they\u2019re not sure it\u2019s worth the risks.<\/p>\n
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On this mission, all four astronauts will don new SpaceX spacesuits before purging the air from their Dragon capsule. Isaacman, the mission commander, and Gillis will then open the hatch and float briefly out of the capsule, connected by umbilical cords that will supply them with oxygen. The mission\u2019s pilot, Scott Poteet, and medical officer and SpaceX employee Anna Menon will remain inside the capsule.<\/p>\n
The allure of doing a spacewalk is clear. The view is stunning, says Luca Parmitano, an astronaut for the European Space Agency who has conducted six spacewalks.<\/p>\n\n<\/aside>\n\u201cIt\u2019s almost as if time stops for a second, or your heart stops for a second, it\u2019s just so beautiful,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
But Parmitano says that spacewalking is also physically and mentally challenging. The suits are pressurized, making them stiff and inflexible.<\/p>\n
“At one point during the spacewalk, you\u2019re going to be hot, you\u2019re going to be cold, your hands are going to hurt,\u201d he says. \u201cYou have to embrace the suck.\u201d<\/p>\n
And there\u2019s a lot that can go wrong. During a spacewalk outside the International Space Station in 2013, Parmitano\u2019s helmet began filling with water from his spacesuit\u2019s cooling system. In zero G, the capillary pressure caused the water to stick to his skin and begin creeping around his head.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt covered my eyes, it covered my ears, it went inside my nose,\u201d Parmitano recalls. He was unable to communicate because his radio no longer worked. \u201cI was on my own, isolated. I couldn\u2019t see anything, I couldn\u2019t hear, I couldn\u2019t talk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Heating up<\/h3>\n Spacewalks (known in the business as Extravehicular Activities, or EVAs), have always been among the most dangerous parts of space travel. During the first American spacewalks carried out during the Gemini program of the 1960s, crew members frequently experienced problems with their suits, according to Emily Margolis, a curator of contemporary spaceflight at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf the nine EVAs that took place during project Gemini, three of them actually ended early due to concerns over health and safety,\u201d Margolis says.<\/p>\n
For example on Gemini 9, astronaut Gene Cernan was supposed to test a kind of rocket pack to help astronauts move around in space. His suit included a metallic coating to protect him from the exhaust of the rocket pack, but the coating made it far harder to move.<\/p>\n
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\n In this image taken from NASA video Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano (lower right) holds a bundle of new pumps for the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer outside the International Space Station on Dec. 2, 2019.<\/p>\n
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One of the paradoxes of spacewalking is that, although space is cold, the lack of atmosphere around the suit can actually cause heat to build up inside. As Cernan struggled to move, he ended up overexerting himself.<\/p>\n\n<\/aside>\n\u201cHe started to sweat profusely and the moisture in the suit started to fog his vizor,\u201d Margolis says. With his visibility severely impaired, his crewmate cut the EVA short and brought him back inside.<\/p>\n
When Cernan returned to Earth, Margolis says, it was determined he\u2019d lost 13 pounds over the mission. \u201cIt\u2019s believed that most of that was water weight from the amount that he was sweating during this EVA,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Spacewalks have become more routine since then, but they remain risky, according to Jonathan Clark, a physician at Baylor College of Medicine who has consulted for both NASA and SpaceX on spacesuits. By his count, around one in five spacewalks encounter some sort of problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes you can adapt to it, but a lot of times you\u2019ve got to stop the EVA and come back in,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
In the case of Luca Parmitano, the astronaut whose helmet began filling with water, he had little choice but to cut the spacewalk short. Because he couldn\u2019t see, he had to work his way back to the airlock from memory. Eventually fellow spacewalker Chris Cassidy helped him get back inside and close the hatch.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI don\u2019t take any specific credit for keeping my cool because I\u2019d been trained my whole adult life to perform in relatively risky situations,\u201d says Parmitano, who is also a colonel and test pilot in the Italian Air Force.<\/p>\n
New challenges<\/h3>\n Clark notes that the Polaris Dawn crew has had far less experience. Of the four crewmembers, only Isaacman has actually been to space.<\/p>\n
Beyond that, \u201cnone of the crew has done an actual spacewalk before,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a first for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
The crew will be wearing new SpaceX suits that in some ways resemble those worn by earlier generations of astronauts. They will be fed oxygen by an umbilical cord connected to the spacecraft, and the suits themselves will be passively cooled with air from the umbilical. That means there\u2019s no chance of a water leak, like what happened to Parmitano, but overheating similar to the Gemini missions could become an issue, as could fogging of the astronaut\u2019s visors.<\/p>\n\n<\/aside>\nMoreover, the Dragon Capsule itself will have to continue to operate smoothly under vacuum. Without air circulating, the capsule\u2019s onboard computers will have a harder time keeping cool.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe challenges are certainly there,\u201d Clark says.<\/p>\n
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But newbies can do tough things in space. Sian Proctor was the pilot of Isaacman\u2019s first mission to orbit the earth in 2021. Until six months before launch, she\u2019d never flown a rocket.<\/p>\n
\u201cI basically went from being a geoscience professor to being a mission pilot of a spacecraft,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Proctor says SpaceX got her ready. In fact, Sarah Gillis helped train her for her mission. Another member of this latest crew, Scott Poteet, was the mission director for her launch.<\/p>\n
While Proctor\u2019s brief flight took only six months to prepare for, this latest mission has been in the works for more than two years, allowing for much more training.<\/p>\n
Proctor says, If anyone can carry out the first commercial spacewalk, it\u2019s this team.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe crew is amazing,\u201d she says. \u201cThey are so competent at what they do.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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