Tech billionaire Jared Isaacman became the first-ever civilian to embark on a spacewalk early Thursday — after already traveling the farthest from Earth a human being has gone since the Apollo moon missions.
Footage of the daring stunt showed Isaacman, 41, popping out of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule on a tether as he came face-to-face with the dark vacuum of space just before 7 a.m.
“Back at home we all have a lot of work to do, but from here, Earth sure looks like a perfect world,” Isaacman said soon after emerging from the spacecraft.
Cameras on board captured his silhouette, waist high at the hatch, with the Earth glittering below him in a half-shadow.
After about 15 minutes outside, Isaacman was replaced by SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis to go through the same motions.
Their maneuvers were streamed live on SpaceX’s website for the duration of the two-hour spacewalk.
Prior to popping open the hatch and emerging, Isaacman and his three other crewmembers were spotted waiting inside as the capsule was completely depressurized.
During that time, they relied on their newly developed SpaceX spacewalking suits for oxygen, which was provided via an umbilical connection to Crew Dragon.
The crew were all connected to 12-foot tethers but didn’t completely unfurl them during the spacewalk.
After emerging, Isaacman — the billionaire CEO and founder of the credit card processing company Shift4 — could be seen keeping a hand or foot attached to the capsule’s hatch at all times as he flexed his arms and legs.
Gillis, meanwhile, bobbed up and down as she twisted her arms and sent live reports back to Mission Control.
A longer, untethered spacewalk – which is common at the International Space Station – wasn’t possible because only NASA suits are currently equipped with jetpacks that can guide an astronaut back to safety.
Given the Crew Dragon doesn’t have a pressurized airlock, the crew needed to wear the new spacesuits to protect them from the vacuum conditions during the mission.
It comes after SpaceX had delayed the planned start of the spacewalk by a few hours early Thursday. No explanation was immediately given for the delay, but the company said via X that “all systems are looking good.”
Isaacman and Gillis were joined on the mission by fellow SpaceX engineer Anna Menon and former Air Force Thunderbirds pilot, Scott “Kidd” Poteet.
They began preparing for the endeavor soon after blasting into orbit on Tuesday for a five-day flight.
The spacewalk took place after Isaacman and the crew reached a distance of nearly 870 miles above the Earth — well beyond the International Space Station and surpassing the Earth-lapping record set during NASA’s Project Gemini in 1966.
Only the 24 Apollo mission astronauts who flew to the moon have ventured farther into space.
While the trip would normally be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, it is just the first of three trips Isaacman purchased from Elon Musk in 2022.
Isaacman, who has not publicly stated how much his SpaceX trips cost, was among the first group of tourists who flew to space in 2021.
They began preparing for the endeavor soon after blasting into orbit on Tuesday for a five-day flight.
During that trip, Isaacman set a record by being the first space tourist to circle the Earth without having a professional astronaut aboard.
