NEW YORK (Diya TV) — Billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman became the first non-professional astronaut to conduct a spacewalk during the SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission, which launched him and three others into orbit.
Isaacman, the founder of the payment processing company Shift4 Payments, has long been a pioneer in space exploration. His previous venture, Inspiration4, in 2021, marked the first all-civilian spaceflight. Now, with Polaris Dawn, he has pushed the boundaries even further.
During the spacewalk, Isaacman emerged from the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, tethered to the spacecraft. He described the experience as “hard, very threatening” and compared it to the challenges faced by explorers centuries ago. “It wasn’t [anything] I would describe as peaceful when you’re looking out in the darkness of space,” he said. “If anything, it was a little bit more of like: ‘If you want to be here, you’re going to have to work for it.'”
The Polaris Dawn mission is not just about personal achievement. It also serves as a significant step towards future human exploration of Mars. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has announced ambitious plans to send an unmanned mission to the Red Planet in two years, followed by a crewed mission within four. Isaacman believes that the challenges faced during his spacewalk mirror those that future Mars explorers will encounter.
The Polaris Dawn mission has also conducted numerous scientific experiments to study the effects of spaceflight on the human body.
