Billionaire becomes first private citizen to spacewalk on SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission

Inspiration4 crew member Jared Isaacman waves to the crowd as he and Sian Proctor, Hayley Arceneaux and Chris Sembroski prepare to leave for their flight on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon at launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on September 15, 2021 in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Inspiration4 crew member Jared Isaacman waves to the crowd as he and Sian Proctor, Hayley Arceneaux and Chris Sembroski prepare to leave for their flight on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon at launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on September 15, 2021 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Photo credit Joe Raedle/Getty Images

History was made early Thursday morning when entrepreneur and billionaire Jared Isaacman became the first private citizen to conduct a spacewalk.

SpaceX is behind what is being called the Polaris Dawn mission. It happened at 3:12 a.m. PST when Isaacmen left the spacecraft, Dragon Resilience, and conducted the historic walk. Isaacman was tethered to a so-called 12 ft. umbilical cord.

After Isaacman’s walk, SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis conducted her spacewalk.

Tariq Malik of Space.com spoke with L.A.’s Morning News about the milestone.“This is really an unprecedented step that SpaceX has taken in commercial space flight,” he said. “This concept has been around for quite some time but SpaceX is the one that did it.”

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Isaacman, who founded payment processing company Shift4 Payments in 1999,  reportedly paid $200 million for the ticket to space.

The spacewalk lasted about two hours, according to Axios.

The crew is expected to return to Earth on Sunday.


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Featured Image Photo Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images