Watch the launch of private manned Polaris Dawn
The real rocket behind tonight’s launch
SpaceX tonight will attempt the launch of the private manned Polaris Dawn mission, led and paid for by billionaire Jared Isaacman and carrying three other crew member (including two SpaceX employees).
I have embedded the live stream below, which has already begun. The launch is presently scheduled for 3:38 am (Eastern), with a four hour launch window.
The mission is planned as a five day mission, during which two astronauts will do a tethered spacewalk, though the entire crew will be in EVA spacesuits. This will be the first entirely private spacewalk, involving no government involvment at all. The mission will also attempt reach the highest orbit since the Apollo days, more than 870 miles.
As I wrote the day of the mission’s first launch attempt:
The mission’s real goal however has nothing to do with engineering and everything to do with freedom and the American dream. This is an entirely private mission. The rocket is privately built. The capsule is privately built. The launchpad is privately built. The launch crew is privately employed. The astronauts are all private citizens, with one paying the way for the entire flight and two flying as employees of SpaceX to test the operation of its capsule in orbit.
No government money is involved. The government had little or no say on what will happen. The mission will illustrate in very stark terms what the American dream is all about, since it has been conceived, paid for, and created entirely by private citizens following their own dreams and goals.
Hail to freedom! May the bell of liberty always ring.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows 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. 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. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally 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.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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 or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
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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.
The real rocket behind tonight’s launch
SpaceX tonight will attempt the launch of the private manned Polaris Dawn mission, led and paid for by billionaire Jared Isaacman and carrying three other crew member (including two SpaceX employees).
I have embedded the live stream below, which has already begun. The launch is presently scheduled for 3:38 am (Eastern), with a four hour launch window.
The mission is planned as a five day mission, during which two astronauts will do a tethered spacewalk, though the entire crew will be in EVA spacesuits. This will be the first entirely private spacewalk, involving no government involvment at all. The mission will also attempt reach the highest orbit since the Apollo days, more than 870 miles.
As I wrote the day of the mission’s first launch attempt:
The mission’s real goal however has nothing to do with engineering and everything to do with freedom and the American dream. This is an entirely private mission. The rocket is privately built. The capsule is privately built. The launchpad is privately built. The launch crew is privately employed. The astronauts are all private citizens, with one paying the way for the entire flight and two flying as employees of SpaceX to test the operation of its capsule in orbit.
No government money is involved. The government had little or no say on what will happen. The mission will illustrate in very stark terms what the American dream is all about, since it has been conceived, paid for, and created entirely by private citizens following their own dreams and goals.
Hail to freedom! May the bell of liberty always ring.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows 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. 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. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally 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.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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 or subscription:
4. 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.
Weather slip. New launch time 5:28am EDT.
Propellant loading underway as of 4:50M EDT.
Correction: New T-0 is 5:23 EDT
Good launch, booster landing and orbital insertion.
Now for another cup of coffee…
Public launch photos are starting to appear on NSF.
My two favorites:
https://x.com/kyle_LTS/status/1833439723051720940/photo/1
(from somewhere on east coast?)
https://x.com/AustinDeSisto/status/1833440626978832437/photo/1
(from DC – kind of a “thumb yer nose” at all the political crap being push at Musk…) haha
I love that he offered to dock with Hubble and simply reboost it using Dracos. Would buy NASA 5 more years, for free, to figure out what to do with Hubble.
They of course turned him down. Great move NASA.
Up, up –and away
Two men, two women. Why must this be a politically correct mission?
Questioner
When you have the money to pick your own crew, then you can decide.
I love how the launch was so smooth and easy looking.
Honestly it looked like the passengers could have fallen asleep waiting for the launch.
I can not wait to see the space walk attempt. I want to see how the suits work.
Not bad mainstream media coverage of the mission, but this paragraph made me think:
“But first the passengers are shooting for way beyond the International Space Station — an altitude of 870 miles (1,400 kilometers), which would surpass the Earth-lapping record set during NASA’s Project Gemini in 1966. Only the 24 Apollo astronauts who flew to the moon have ventured farther.”
https://www.aol.com/news/spacex-launches-billionaire-conduct-first-092931662.html
Yet there were a total of nine Apollo missions to the moon. ???
As it turns out, this figure (24) is correct because three astronauts — Jim Lovell (8,13), John W. Young (10,16), and Eugene Cernan (10,17) — each traveled to the moon twice, but only the latter two walked on the moon. Try this one at a cocktail party.
https://science.nasa.gov/moon/moon-walkers/https://science.nasa.gov/moon/moon-walkers/
https://www.britannica.com/story/how-many-people-have-been-to-the-moon