Two astronauts on commercial Polaris Dawn manned mission complete spacewalk
Jared Isaacman during his spacewalk
Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis this morning each successfully completed short spacewalks outside their Resilience capsule, exiting about halfway into space but floating free except for a umbilical tether.
It was very evident that the goal of both EVAs was to check out the engineering upgrades created by SpaceX to make this spacewalk possible. Both astronauts worked very carefully to vent the capsule’s atmosphere, open the hatch, exit, then close the hatch, though Isaacman (who exited first) opened the hatch and Gillis closed the hatch. All in all it took a little less then two hours to complete both spacewalks, with Isaacman outside for about ten minutes, and Gillis for a little less.
Though the actual EVAs were relatively unambitious, they were very comparable to the first government spacewalks by America’s Ed White and Russia’s Alexei Leonov in the 1960s. The engineering data that SpaceX obtained from this spacewalk will allow it to refine its spacesuits, its capsule, and make later commercial spacewalks more complex.
This new SpaceX capability is now something the company can market to other future customers. It not only gives this American private enterprise another skill, it makes SpaceX’s commercial capabilities more valuable.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Jared Isaacman during his spacewalk
Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis this morning each successfully completed short spacewalks outside their Resilience capsule, exiting about halfway into space but floating free except for a umbilical tether.
It was very evident that the goal of both EVAs was to check out the engineering upgrades created by SpaceX to make this spacewalk possible. Both astronauts worked very carefully to vent the capsule’s atmosphere, open the hatch, exit, then close the hatch, though Isaacman (who exited first) opened the hatch and Gillis closed the hatch. All in all it took a little less then two hours to complete both spacewalks, with Isaacman outside for about ten minutes, and Gillis for a little less.
Though the actual EVAs were relatively unambitious, they were very comparable to the first government spacewalks by America’s Ed White and Russia’s Alexei Leonov in the 1960s. The engineering data that SpaceX obtained from this spacewalk will allow it to refine its spacesuits, its capsule, and make later commercial spacewalks more complex.
This new SpaceX capability is now something the company can market to other future customers. It not only gives this American private enterprise another skill, it makes SpaceX’s commercial capabilities more valuable.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Wonderful small steps forward for mankind and actually large steps – if the anti-achievement people among us will stay out of the way!
Also a Hubble repair mission possible
Not only what these new capabilities can be offered *as they are*, but also what it means for the long-term future of SpaceX’s human spaceflight plans. As SpaceX’s official X account noted yesterday, “Building a base on the Moon and a city on Mars will require thousands of spacesuits. The development of this suit, and the EVA performed on this mission, will be important steps toward a scalable design for spacesuits on future long-duration missions.”
https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1834165249148367023
It is important to think of this suit as just “version 1.0.” One day, we will see iterations of it that can conduct extended independent EVA’s on the surface of the Moon and Mars, and be repeatedly reused for years. Jared Isaacman just paid for a jumpstart of this process, and did a live fire demonstration of them in use.
The local librag ran with an article that played up the mission as a billionaire’s joyride by unqualified amateurs.
No mention of the professional backgrounds of the astronauts, and their years of training. Not to mention the massive charitable contributions generated, or that it was the successful first test of a new generation of EVA spacesuits, something that NASA spent millions on but produced nothing!
It would seem that one thing to be done very soon now is a means to allow EVAs without requiring venting of the capsule. That will be a major undertaking as one can’t just slap an airlock into the existing design. That would mean a v2 of the Dragon Crew unless SpaceX intends to skip that and just have this built into Starship.
The local librag ran with an article that played up the mission as a billionaire’s joyride by unqualified amateurs.
I’m almost, sorta kinda, open to the “amateur”, “joyride” tag for the Inspiration4 and Fram2 missions, which, while requiring considerable training for their crews and conducting some actual science, had, if we are being honest, tourism as significant slices of what they were/are doing — and with a cost (and risk) pretty arguably out of proportion to the science actually achieved. Not that I have the *slightest* problem with that: These missions help SpaceX advance its human spaceflight capabilities (and financial bottom line), and demonstrate that people beyond government employees can go to space and do things there, too. This is, as Mr. Zimmerman keeps reminding us, of critical importance for our future in space.
But it is downright insulting to apply it to the Polaris Program, which really *is* advancing the state of art, and doing some major science along the way. The level of training that the four Polaris astronauts had to do, and the expertise base they *already* had, honestly makes them comparable, at minimum, to NASA, ESA, and JAXA flight engineers, and in some cases, their pilots, too. Gillis and Menon actually help train NASA astronauts for Crew Dragon missions, and help plan those missions, for pete’s sake. This was an ambitious space mission with relatively little time for joyriding, and you can see from various “professional” American and Canadian astronaut’s social media accounts, they, too, fully recognize all of this.
So, um, has the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife weighed in on this? It IS possible Isaacman and Gillis disturbed some spade microbes, you know . . .
I was surprised at how slow – and dare I say “boring” – it was. Most of the time was spent waiting for pressure changes.
That does not fit my science fiction based view of: Quickly throw on spacesuit and go outside.
I’m sure everyone involved is very happy it was boring. Excitement in space is rarely a good thing. But still, 40 minutes to open a hatch?
It takes a hour or more to open the hatch when something docks to the ISS.
granted we all want a Science fiction door opening and people just walking in but NASA does move a bit slow.
Mark Sizer,
The leisurely nature of current spacewalk preps is due to needing to accommodate the Mk 1 Mod 0 human body. So long as spacecraft are pressurized to sea-level normal with plain old Earth-formula air, while spacesuits are pressurized much less and with all or mostly oxygen breathing mixes, a non-trivial gradual depressurization process, accompanied by a gradual change of atmosphere composition, will also be needed preceding any excursions outside.
As every extra bit of internal pressure in a spacesuit makes it harder for its wearer to move around, I suspect spacecraft headed for the Moon, Mars and other distant destinations will soon enough adopt use of a spacesuit-like atmosphere gas mix and pressure, making it possible to do a sci-fi-like quick exit/entry to/from the outside without elaborate preliminaries. It might easily become the case that only Earth-orbit space stations oriented toward serving tourists on short-term stays will have atmospheres of Earth-normal pressure and composition. Everywhere else in space will, for convenience, operate with spacesuit-compatible gas mixes and pressures.
Dick Eagleson, thanks.
I suspect spacecraft headed for the Moon, Mars and other distant destinations will soon enough adopt use of a spacesuit-like atmosphere gas mix and pressure
Are there any side effects to that? The narrator(?) of this mission said voices change, which is bit disconcerting, but hardly harmful.
This is basically diving bends in reverse, isn’t it? Fiction is not a good guide to reality, but didn’t that James Cameron diving movie (ah! The Abyss) have the entire submerged base at high pressure? Does that actually happen? In submarines, for example.
By the way, I would like to highlight Eric Berger’s article over at Ars Technica today, because he really makes the effort to spell out why this mission is important, and and why this spacewalk is important — for the future. It really is worth your time, because this is a mainstream space journalist making this case in an otherwise politically lefty media outlet:
https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/09/two-private-astronauts-took-a-spacewalk-thursday-morning-yes-it-was-historic/
Even better, it gives me hope that most of the Ars commenters were not only basically supportive of this stance, but ruthlessly downvoted the minority of butt-hurt race communnists who made their inevitable whinges about billionaire joyrides and fascist racist CEOs — and that Eric himself pushed back, hard, in the comments as well.
And one of the important points he makes in the comments is just how important this mission was for the hordes of hungry, idealistic young engineers who work for SpaceX. This means a lot to them, because it is exactly why they went to work for SpaceX in the first place: “I’m sorry. You’re complaining about the cheering from SpaceX? Most of the young people who went there did so with, at the very least, a back burner desire to go to space one day themselves. On this mission, for the first time, two of their own are actually going to orbit. This morning, one of them walked in space. I’m pretty sure they’re absolutely fired up and the cheering is legitimate.”
Sarah Gillis, the second spacewalker, is only 30 years old. This makes her the youngest spacewalker in history, BTW.
To Steve,
If Starship has major delays, maybe something like Soyuz’ spherical forward compartment can be looked at—then left on Hubble.
The nose cap can get in the way as is.
Anyone claiming this was a hoax already?
Jeff, Steve,
A Soyuz style orbital module is certainly one possible solution.
But it seems difficult for SpaceX to justify the (considerable) expense and resources involved in developing one, when it has more robust options coming down the pipeline. For Crew Dragon, a station module like the one Vast is developing could be made into a kind of service vehicle, for starters. But the real solution, obviously, is going to be crewed Starship variants. Just the other day, in fact, I saw a photo over at NSF of a full-scale prototype of Starship’s airlocks, being played with by NASA astronauts….they are clearly well along in developing this feature of Starship HLS.
As for Hubble, NASA certainly has off-the-shelf uncrewed options if it *really* thinks a Crew Dragon mission is too risky: Just go get a tug like Northrup Grumman’s MEV, slap some gyros and a docking latch on it, and send it on up for an orbit boost and attitude control. (This has been proposed and looked at in the internal study NASA did.) Of course, that would cost NASA a couple hundred million, I assume, and budgets are tight right now…
Note that the EVA ladder was named the “Skywalker System”
You could see the suit was not exactly made for open space walks. it was very couch shaped for one.
But this did prove to everyone that the craft could be opened to space and used for a space walk at least in an emergency.
Now it could be used as a suit test craft as they make better and better suits. They will have to come up with a personal life support system for each suit and a larger rail system to practice EVA’x,
Please don’t sue me, Spinners (Rubberband Man Bell/Creed Atlantic 1976)
Hand me down my walkin’ shoes
Hand me down my hat
Time to take an EVA
Open up that hatch
You and me we’re goin’ out
Where there ain’t no air
And if you scream there ain’t no sound
Miles above the ground
Hey, Y’all, prepare yourself, for the Private Space Man
You won’t find him on the ground
He’s the Private Space Man
Government’s gonna lose control
When private space starts to jam
Meanwhile, I would like to note that there are commenters on the New York Times article about the spacewalk, with dozens of likes, literally hoping the crew die in space. You can guess the reasons.
Mark Sizer asked: “I was surprised at how slow – and dare I say “boring” – it was. Most of the time was spent waiting for pressure changes. That does not fit my science fiction based view of: Quickly throw on spacesuit and go outside. I’m sure everyone involved is very happy it was boring. Excitement in space is rarely a good thing. But still, 40 minutes to open a hatch?”
This is test engineering for you. Few things go quickly, and time is spent taking great care that everything is going right.
Science fiction based views are often somewhat different from reality. In the 1950s, for example, every science fiction fan knew that the way to get to the Moon was to climb into a V2 type rocket, zoom into space, land on the Moon, and climb down the long ladder to the surface. After defeating the moon-monster, you climb back in, zoom back into space (wait, aren’t you already in space?), and land the V2 back on Earth to tell your tale. The reality turned out to be a little different. The rocket had be a bit larger than the V2, there were fewer moon-monsters than science fiction advertised, and only a small part of the rocket returned, so reusability was out of the plan.
One of the differences between this first commercial space walk (EVA) and the NASA EVAs is that we don’t sit around watching the NASA astronauts prepare for their own egresses. pzatchok is right about watching a docking to the ISS, except that he skipped the part where the approach and docking also take a large amount of time. To save time, watch these things on a replay, where it is easy to skip ahead of the slow, boring parts, going quickly to where something happens.
Docking on Earth seems to happen much faster. An airliner approaches the runway at a hundred miles per hour, and after landing it approaches the gate at a speed of a few meters per second, whereas the spacecraft approaches the ISS docking port at a few centimeters per second. Once the airliner stops at the gate, a mission specialist docks the jetway to the airliner’s hatch a couple of minutes later and the door is opened. All this takes so much less than pzatchok’s hour.
I was impressed with Issacman’s professionalism during the walk. Very much “The Right Stuff” approach to data collection for improvements to Mk 2 suit.
No yipppeee!!! Look at me look at me stuff.
The liberal mind has gone round the bend with social, racial, cultural self loathing.
Sailing and spaceflight: hours of tedium, interspersed with moments of concern.