SpaceX’s Contribution: First Private Spacewalk

By ZiChing Zhou

I have always wondered how life in space would be or if I would ever have the chance of exploring space. All these futuristic thoughts of not just mine, but everyone else, are becoming closer and closer to reality everyday. Just recently, the Polaris Dawn mission run by SpaceX was complete. However, what was special about it? Well, the crew was a group of private citizens and non-astronauts, marking the first ever private spacewalk. They received extensive training in order to pilot a spacecraft and adapt to the suddenly changing environments in space. The entire project was also funded by billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman (one of the crew members). This means that unlike most space missions, the crew was not government-funded and therefore did not have the backing of the nation’s resources. I think that if any civilians are able to create such a large project based on their own funds, it is likely that we will be able to do the same sooner or later. 

To highlight the processes related to the mission, the crew underwent pre-breathing in order to decrease pressure and prevent themselves from receiving decompression sickness. They also used a specially designed Extravehicular Activity spacesuit and a Dragon Capsule in order to step out of the spacecraft. The Dragon Capsule created a unique experience as previous spacewalks used airlocks (separating the craft from the space vacuum) instead. 

After the crew returned to Earth on September 15th, many described the mission as extraordinary with Jared Isaacman commenting “What an emotional experience, a sensory overload” and Scott Poteet saying “The perfection of what you’re looking at is just awe-inspiring”. However, even though they were fascinated with the beauty of Earth with Isaacman once again making a comment, “Back at home we all have a lot of work to do, but from here, Earth looks like a perfect world”; they could not help but observe that the environment was not at all peaceful but rather harsh and threatening. I believe that this cruel reality in space would pose a challenge in inhabiting other planets, however, with more research, anything could be possible. Isaacman described the sublime situation as “It’s not just the visual stimulus of seeing Earth right in front of you”. “There are pressure changes, there are big temperature transients. It gets colder. There’s the physical exertion of moving the hatch, so it was rather intense”. 

Another one of the crewmates, Sarah Gillis, who is also a violinist, brought a smaller version of the instrument that went under rigorous testing to ensure it can withstand its exposure to the space vacuum. She played “Rey’s Theme” by Star Wars composer John Williams and said “It was so interesting to be able to play an instrument in space”, “There were so many instances where you’re just trying to keep it still enough that you can actually play successfully”. Since I play an instrument myself, the piano, I can relate to Sarah thinking that it would be a very unique experience especially with all the extra challenges due to the environment. 

Finally, some comments from the last crew member, Anna Menon, described the extent at which research was conducted “We were taking all sorts of data to be able to learn more through science and research about the human response to that environment”. She said “We will take all of this back, learn from it, and then be able to go further based on this”. 

I think you should think about it too, if you were the one who went up to space, I am sure your experiences would be similar to theirs as well and we would agree with Poteet saying “It’s so mesmerizing because it’s such a beautiful planet”. I believe that perhaps, after the completion of the Polaris Program, we can expect the reality of traveling to space and receiving unique experiences ourselves just as the crew from Polaris Dawn did.