Payment company Shift4’s founder, billionaire Jared Isaacman, is headed off on the Polaris Dawn mission, scheduled from August 26. And, he’ll be one of the first civilians to walk in space.
Key Takeaways
- A crew of four are expected to make the first-ever commercial space walk in the coming weeks, as the Polaris Dawn mission takes off from Florida no earlier than August 26.
- On board the Polaris Dawn, launching on Elon Musk’s SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, is mission commander Jared Isaacman, mission pilot Scott Poteet, mission specialist Sarah Gillis and mission specialist and medical officer Anna Menon. Of those, one is a billionaire: Isaacman.
- The crew will be the first private citizens in history to walk in space, tethered to their spacecraft and fed oxygen via a hose.
Who is Jared Isaacman?
Isaacman, worth about US$2 billion according to Forbes, is the CEO and founder of Pennsylvania-based payment procession firm, Shift4 Payments, which he launched in 1999 at 16-years-old. Today, that company handles payments for a third of America’s restaurants and hotels. Shift4 went public in 2020, and Isaacman still owns about 38% of its stock.
But the billionaire is also a fighter-jet pilot, and has over 7,000 hours of flying time – including ratings in multiple experimental and ex-military aircraft. (In fact, in 2019, he bought a Soviet-era Mikoyan MiG-29 fighter jet from the estate of Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen).
He also holds a few world records, including two speed-around-the-world flights (2008 and 2009). According to Polaris, Isaacman was the commander of Inspiration4 – the world’s first all-civilian mission to space, which helped raise over US$240 million for charity. He also co-founded the world’s largest private air force, Draken International (but sold a majority stake to Blackstone for a reported nine-figure sum in 2019).
What’s the Polaris Dawn?
The Polaris Dawn is a planned private human spaceflight mission, operated by SpaceX on behalf of Isaacman. The mission will see the Crew Dragon – a capsule – propelling Isaacman and the other crew members, to reach the highest Earth orbit ever flown, entering the Van Allen radiation belts.
There, the plan is to conduct research with the aim of better understanding the effects of spaceflight and space radiation on human health.
What’s the big deal?
The mission will see the crew attempt the first-ever commercial extravehicular activity (EVA). In other words, the first space-walk. Decked out in SpaceX-designed EVA spacesuits, the crew will be the first private citizens in history to walk in space, tethered to their spacecraft and fed oxygen via a hose. Part of this is testing out the suits themselves, according to the site.
“Building a base on the Moon and a city on Mars will require thousands of spacesuits; the development of this suit and the execution of the EVA will be important steps toward a scalable design for spacesuits on future long-duration missions,” the Polaris site states..
They’ll also be the first crew to test Musk’s Starlink laser-based communications in space.
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