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Space NASA

Billionaire and Engineer Conduct First Private Spacewalk In SpaceX Mission (reuters.com) 53

Posted by BeauHD from the riskiest-mission-yet dept.
Two astronauts, billionaire Jared Isaacman and SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis, completed the world's first private spacewalk outside a SpaceX capsule, testing new spacesuits and procedures in a risky mission that pushes the boundaries of commercial spaceflight. Reuters reports: The astronauts on the Polaris Dawn mission went one at a time, each spending about 10 minutes outside the gumdrop-shaped Crew Dragon capsule on a tether, as Elon Musk's company again succeeded in pushing the boundaries of commercial spaceflight. Jared Isaacman, a pilot and the founder of electronic payments company Shift4, exited first, followed by SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis, while crewmates Scott Poteet and Anna Menon watched from inside. The whole process, unfolding about 450 miles (730 km) above Earth, lasted an hour and 46 minutes. The four astronauts have been orbiting Earth since Tuesday's launch from Florida. Isaacman is bankrolling the Polaris mission, as he did his Inspiration4 flight with SpaceX in 2021.

Streamed live on SpaceX's website, the mission tested trailblazing equipment including slim spacesuits and a process to fully depressurize the Crew Dragon cabin - technology that Musk hopes to advance for ambitious future private missions to Mars. "Back at home we all have a lot of work to do. But from here, Earth sure looks like a perfect world," Isaacman said after emerging from the spacecraft, silhouetted with the half-lit planet glittering below. It was one of the riskiest missions yet for SpaceX, the only private company that has proven to be capable of routinely sending people to and from Earth's orbit. "Today's success represents a giant leap forward for the commercial space industry and @NASA's long-term goal to build a vibrant U.S. space economy," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

You can watch a livestream recording of the Polaris Dawn Mission here.
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Billionaire and Engineer Conduct First Private Spacewalk In SpaceX Mission More

Billionaire and Engineer Conduct First Private Spacewalk In SpaceX Mission

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  • Can't wait for the video to be downloaded. The live feed was spotty, I'll bet some of the captured video is really good.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by dbialac ( 320955 )
      Speaking of videos, now that we can do a private spacewalk, how long until we see the first in-space porno? New tech usually advances first through porn. It's seriously why VHS took off while Beta failed. Sony had banned Beta setups from producing porn films. Beta did make it for a long time, though. TV Stations used it to download TV shows for viewing each night because the quality was so much better.

      • Speaking of videos, now that we can do a private spacewalk, how long until we see the first in-space porno?

        Honestly, 25-30 years, assuming launch costs continue to go down. Its sort of become a meme in the internet years that nobody pays for porn (whereas more people used to in the physical media days), which severely handicaps how much financial resources can go into the budgets of such production.

        Realistically porn is only so prevalent because of how cheap it is to produce. Any reasonably attractive person (usually female, but not always) with a video camera - even on their cell phone - can produce this conte

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by BigFire ( 13822 )

      The laser link they're testing with this mission is mounted on the trunk section of the vehicle. For the thermo and other consideration, the hatch is pointing towards Earth which means the laser is on the other end. They're orbiting at a much higher altitude than Starlink constellations, so the usual patch of ground station will have to do.

  • Not really a good use of my tax dollars (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Thursday September 12, 2024 @04:39PM (#64783835)
    and given how billionaires dodge taxes (effective rate 8% vs my 27%) it *is* my tax dollars paying for it. Nvmd that 95% of the tech that made this possible was invented on my dime.

    Maybe I'd be less salty if it wasn't election season and I wasn't being bombarded with ads telling me how we should cancel foreign aid to spend the money here when I've got a refugee crisis at the border being exploited for political gain... Or if I wasn't looking at spending $360k on a house my parents would've paid $60k for because we stopped building new cities...

    I'm just saying we always have money to let billionaires live out their boyhood fantasies, but not for affordable housing. I can't be the only one annoyed by that.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ddtmm ( 549094 )
      We can always all look to the bright side. When Elon finally does populate Mars, maybe you’ll be one of the first ones to go.
      • There's no way in hell my ass is getting on one of his rockets to Mars or anywhere else. Right now the engineers are in charge of SpaceX because there's an entire department whose job is to prevent Leon from making decisions but sooner or later he's going to notice or somebody's going to point it out to him and make him look like a fool and he's going to do the same shit Boeing did but with rockets instead of planes.

    • I have a counter-proposal (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      > and given how billionaires dodge taxes (effective rate 8% vs my 27%) it *is* my tax dollars paying for it. Nvmd that 95% of the tech that made this possible was invented on my dime.

      Elon's wealth is tied up in companies he made that provide things that other people willingly pay him for. Your proposal is to take the stuff he made to spend it on your own priorities, which is not surprising since Kamala has proposed some huge taxes meant for basically Elon.

      But the thing is, by your standard claiming thos

    • you really think it's the billionaires stopping us from building things in america?

      (hint: lawyers and nimbys)

    • I'm just saying we always have money to let billionaires live out their boyhood fantasies, but not for affordable housing. I can't be the only one annoyed by that.

      You have to look at the bright side: when disgusting billionaires send themselves up in rockets, there's small but non-zero chance that they won't make it back.

      The same holds true for any stupid dangerous activities they latch on and choose spend their ill-gotten money on, such as going down in a carbon fiber sub to visit the Titanic wreck.

      • How is it ill-gotten? How is it even "gotten" to begin with? The vast majority of that "money" isn't even money, it's just speculated value, basically just what some other people think it's worth.

        This is what's so entertaining about you guys. You have it in your heads that they're being paid an annual income and not being taxed on it.

    • Fair, ethical taxation would mean we pay for what we get from the government. Do billionaires use the roads significantly more than you? More public education for their kids? More welfare and old age security? And don't give me they benefit more. Is it really ethical to charge a starving person more for food because not starving vs getting fat is pretty beneficial. We tax the rich because it is practical, because originally it was done with their consent because it was most efficient way to get things

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by RobinH ( 124750 )

      I don't know. I'm of two minds on this. The reason countries let high wealth people keep their wealth is that they're much more likely to invest it in the creation of new wealth than if you gave that same money to average citizens or government department. (Western) governments focus on regulating the wealthy, not so much taking their wealth.

      If you gave me an extra million dollars, I honestly wouldn't be able to do any better than invest that in the market and get an average 6% over inflation return on it

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dbialac ( 320955 )
      When they pass, the tax on the estate will pay back with a very large check.

    • Honestly, I'm all for billionares going to space.

      Gonna be extra spicy once space does what it does best;- freeze dry humans in a merciless vaccum.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by BigFire ( 13822 )

      Which part of private money don't you understand. Falcon 9 development is partially funded by NASA, for which they've performed excellently for below market rate. NASA consider the commercial resupply program the most bang for bucks the agency ever conceived. This mission for which NASA is getting a lot of data relay to at no cost to the tax payers (because SpaceX & Polaris Dawn are sharing the data for public good).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by stikves ( 127823 )

      That "effective rate" is a farce.

      Income tax average of the top 1% is 25.9%. Top 0.1% pays 30-35%. And the very top 0.01% pays 35-40% or higher.

      And compared to that the median tax rate is 0.4% (almost half of Americans do no pay income taxes). While the average household is estimated 10% to 15%.

      So, no, you are not, and I am not, none of us are, paying more taxes than these rich snobs. Not even in percentile wise. Definitely not in absolute terms.

      Their personalities might be extremely lacking, but with using

  • congratulations (Score:3)

    by bugs2squash ( 1132591 ) on Thursday September 12, 2024 @04:44PM (#64783849)
    congratulations to them all. I'm not sure I'm ready to trust my life to things I've created. This is a great outcome - I hope they get back safely.

  • Love to see it (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SomePoorSchmuck ( 183775 ) on Thursday September 12, 2024 @04:55PM (#64783889) Homepage

    Start the clock -- as with so many new experiences, the billionaires will fund the technology and procedure development as they chase status and niche pleasures (because when you can afford everything basic, you need greater and more exotic forms of stimulation to feel alive). In another 25 years it'll be an expensive but barely accessible once-in-a-lifetime upper middle class treat for things like graduating from med school, couples on honeymoons, business dudes having a midlife crisis, etc. And then it'll become something pretty common for folks born after 2040.

    Thanks to the vanity and ennui of wealthy people, my grandkids will get to see Earth as it truly is.

    LIKELY ALTERNATIVE: We cross the idiocracy tipping point in the 2030s. Our outwardly aspirational technology infrastructure crumbles and we go deep inward on haptic/sensory feedback experience so realistic that nobody can be bothered going to actual space. Unfortunately, this also means people have reached a level of neurostim addiction where they can't be bothered to do anything other than seek ever more niche and exotic virtual experiences. Advanced VR is the great equalizer which will finally enable the poor to achieve the same level of hollow narcotic ennui the wealthy classes have suffered from for millennia.

    • Except the poor can't afford it, and will instead by sitting all day on the pedal bikes that power the VR machines for the rich.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by m00sh ( 2538182 )

      Start the clock -- as with so many new experiences, the billionaires will fund the technology and procedure development as they chase status and niche pleasures (because when you can afford everything basic, you need greater and more exotic forms of stimulation to feel alive). In another 25 years it'll be an expensive but barely accessible once-in-a-lifetime upper middle class treat for things like graduating from med school, couples on honeymoons, business dudes having a midlife crisis, etc. And then it'll become something pretty common for folks born after 2040.

      Thanks to the vanity and ennui of wealthy people, my grandkids will get to see Earth as it truly is.

      LIKELY ALTERNATIVE: We cross the idiocracy tipping point in the 2030s. Our outwardly aspirational technology infrastructure crumbles and we go deep inward on haptic/sensory feedback experience so realistic that nobody can be bothered going to actual space. Unfortunately, this also means people have reached a level of neurostim addiction where they can't be bothered to do anything other than seek ever more niche and exotic virtual experiences. Advanced VR is the great equalizer which will finally enable the poor to achieve the same level of hollow narcotic ennui the wealthy classes have suffered from for millennia.

      Welcome to the whale economy.

      We are just here for their amusement and to laud their achievements. You are doing your part in putting your praises in for progressing science.

  • Can't be real. (Score:3)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Thursday September 12, 2024 @05:57PM (#64784051)

    I was told by Astral Physics PhD Joe Rogan that no human can survive the van Allen belts. The van Allen belts surround the Earth and produce intense radiation that would instantly vaporize anything that goes near it.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Eh... we can at least hope the billionaire winds up with testicular cancer and has to have his balls cut off when he gets back to earth.

    • I was told by Astral Physics PhD Joe Rogan that no human can survive the van Allen belts. The van Allen belts surround the Earth and produce intense radiation that would instantly vaporize anything that goes near it.

      Never quite understood Joes (or any other) position on the moon landings to be fake. Especially after we created telescopes powerful enough to see the fucking lunar rover tracks from here.

      It would be harder to fake lunar tacks on the surface, than actually go and put them there.

      • Re:Can't be real. (Score:4, Informative)

        by caseih ( 160668 ) on Thursday September 12, 2024 @08:01PM (#64784249)

        Not quite. There's no earth-based telescope with the angular resolution to discern that. Not even Hubble can see that small of stuff. What we do have, however, are pretty clear pictures taken by relatively recent moon-orbiting surveyors that show the tracks of the rovers and the landing sites.

        And of course we can shoot lasers and hit the reflectors that were left by the various moon missions, including a non-manned mission by Russia.

        Obligatory https://youtu.be/P6MOnehCOUw [youtu.be]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Meneth ( 872868 )
      "Astral" physics, lol.

  • Kinda disappointing (Score:3)

    by necro81 ( 917438 ) on Friday September 13, 2024 @07:43AM (#64784953) Journal
    The original mission proposal showed someone free-floating outside the Dragon capsule [teslarati.com] (but still tethered with an umbilical). *That* I would call a spacewalk. That's what Ed White first did back in 1965 [youtube.com]. What happened yesterday was some guy (and then a girl) popping their torso through a hatch, like they're space gophers [google.com] or something.

    • The original mission proposal showed someone free-floating outside the Dragon capsule [teslarati.com] (but still tethered with an umbilical). *That* I would call a spacewalk. That's what Ed White first did back in 1965 [youtube.com]. What happened yesterday was some guy (and then a girl) popping their torso through a hatch, like they're space gophers [google.com] or something.

      I seem to remember there being some form of discussion about safety and how important it was that nobody go too far off the capsule just to prevent disaster. If one of these folks died, we'd see an immediate about-face on space-tourism and probably be facing another sixty years of being told that humans in space is stupid. Caution at this point may seem bizarre, but I get it. I'm glad somebody's thinking about the public perception possibilities and kept it somewhat reasonable this first go. Raise the bar a

  • I never saw them leave the ladder and the only videos and pics I saw had them both doing the groundhog day version of "space cowboys".
    They never did a space walk but only a weak, very weak *space peek* out of the capsule.

    Not that impressed if that was a major objective.

    But I really support SpaceX. But guys and gals, please make it real.

    Thanks.

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