Billionaire Jared Isaacman could make history for all the right reasons during his Polaris Dawn mission.
This rendering shows a crew member of the Polaris Dawn mission performing a planned tethered spacewalk from the SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience. KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — Billionaire Jared Isaacman could make history for all the right reasons during his Polaris Dawn mission when the hatch opens on a SpaceX Crew Dragon and he ventures out into the vacuum of space.
Polaris Dawn briefing — ..Mission Commander Jared Isaacman talks to the media after arriving at Kennedy Space Center for the private spaceflight Polaris Dawn mission, on Monday, Aug. 19, 2024. ..They are scheduled to launch next week on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, and will attempt the first commercial spacewalk…
Polaris Dawn briefing — ..Mission Commander Jared Isaacman talks to the media after arriving at Kennedy Space Center for the private spaceflight Polaris Dawn mission, on Monday, Aug. 19, 2024. ..They are scheduled to launch next week on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, and will attempt the first commercial spacewalk…
Mission Specialist & Medical Officer Anna Menon, from left, Mission Pilot Scott Poteet, Mission Commander Jared Isaacman and Mission Specialist Sarah Gillis pose for photos Monday, Aug. 19, 2024, after holding a media event at Kennedy Space Center for the private spaceflight Polaris Dawn mission. Polaris Dawn briefing — ..Mission Commander Jared Isaacman talks to the media after arriving at Kennedy Space Center for the private spaceflight Polaris Dawn mission, on Monday, Aug. 19, 2024. ..
When asked why not do that full float away like the famous photo of the first American spacewalk, astronaut Ed White on June 3, 1964 on Gemini 4, Isaacman said safety trumps such a notion, and either hands or feet will be engaged with the Skywalker at all times. That follows safer parameters such as those performed by Buzz Aldrin on the Gemini 12 mission from Nov. 12-14, 1966.
The plan is for Isaacman and Gillis to each spend about 15-20 minutes outside the Dragon with two oxygen lines each fed to their suits through tethers that run about 12 feet long. “It’s kind of a really clever way of both providing shade to the nose cone and then also additional protection of spacecraft,” Gillis said.
“When we’re in the vacuum with 100% oxygen into the space suits, we want to eliminate as many flammability risks as possible,” Gerstenmaier said. “We discovered that in the dry environment there can be static electric discharge, and that could potentially lead to a flammability concern. The teams went in to mitigate that. They’ve changed procedures, they’ve changed processes, they’ve added conductive material, and we are truly ready to go fly.
“Over the course of about 45 hours, we’ll actually slowly drop cabin pressure and raise oxygen concentration to help mitigate the risk,” said Gillis. “On flight day 2, we’ll get pressurized in the suits and actually go through a mobility demo where we step through the sequence and movements inside the spacecraft and really make sure there was nothing missed in our training that we’re confident before we step outside.
“You are taking on a lot of risk at that point,” Isaacman said. “I think it just goes into the preparations for that risk that I believe have been well mitigated.”
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