Tag: Jared Isaacman

Is the nomination of Jared Isaacman as NASA’s administrator facing political headwinds?

10:18 am

Jared Isaacman
Jared Isaacman

I admit immediately that I have no inside information to back up the speculation that will follow. Instead, it is based entirely on my fifty years of experience observing the political machinations that take place inside the DC swamp.

In the past week there have been a slew of stories all aimed at pressuring Congress to quickly confirm Jared Isaacman (, jet pilot, businessman, and commercial astronaut), Trump’s pick to be NASA’s next administrator. For example, two days ago NASA’s last Republican-appointed administrator Jim Bridenstine publicly called for Isaacman’s confirmation by the Senate.

“I think Jared Isaacman is going to be an amazing NASA administrator,” he said. “I think he’s got all the tools to be what could be the most consequential NASA administrator given the era in which we live in now.” That era, he said, involves greater reliance on commercial space capabilities. “He’s going to be able to take that and do things that have never been able to be done before.”

This week there was also an article in Space News, touting Isaacman’s desire to increase funding to NASA’s planetary defense program, expressed by him in February when it looked like asteroid 2024 YR4 had a good chance of hitting the Earth in 2032.

Furthermore, a group of seven Republican senators this week also joined the chorus, sending a letter [pdf] to Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D-Washington), the chair and ranking members respectively of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, extolling Isaacman in glowing terms and calling for his quick confirmation.

So with all this enthusiastic support bubbling out everywhere, why do I suspect Isaacman might actually be in trouble?
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Part 2 of 2: De-emphasize a fast Moon landing and build a real American space industry instead

10:41 am

In part one yesterday of this two-part essay, I described the likelihood that Jared Isaacman, Trump’s appointment to be NASA’s next administrator, will push to cancel NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and its Orion capsule, deeming them too expensive, too unsafe, and too cumbersome to use for any viable effort to colonize the solar system.

I then described how the Artemis lunar landings could still be done, more or less as planned, by replacing SLS with Starship/Superheavy, and Orion with Starship. Such a change would entail some delay, but it could be done.

This plan however I think is short-sighted. The Artemis lunar landings as proposed are really nothing more than another Apollo-like plant-the-flag-on-the-Moon stunt. As designed they do little to establish a permanent sustainable human presence on the Moon or elsewhere in the solar system.

Isaacman however has another option that can create a permanent sustainable American presence in space, and that option is staring us all in the face.

And now for something entire different

Capitalism in space: I think Isaacman should shift the gears of Artemis entirely, and put a manned Moon landing on the back burner. Let China do its one or two lunar landing stunts, comparable to Apollo but incapable of doing much else.
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Part 1 of 2: What NASA’s next administrator should do if SLS and Orion are cancelled

2:29 pm

When George Bush Jr. first proposed in 2004 an American long term effort to return to the Moon that has since become the Artemis program, he made it clear that the goal was not to simply land in 2015 and plant the flag, but to establish an aerospace industry capable of staying on the Moon permanently while going beyond to settle the entire the solar system.

The problem was that Bush proposed doing this with a government-built system that was simply not capable of making it happen. Though this system has gone through many changes in the two decades since Bush’s proposal, in every case it has been centered on rockets and spacecrafts that NASA designed, built, and owned, and were thus not focused on profit and efficiency. The result has been endless budget overruns and delays, so that two decades later and more than $60 billion, NASA is still years away from that first Moon landing, and the SLS rocket and Orion capsule that it designed and built for this task are incapable of establishing a base on the Moon, no less explore the solar system.

The real cost of SLS and Orion
The expected real per launch cost of SLS and Orion

For one thing, SLS at its best can only launch once per year (at a cost of from $1 to $4 billion per launch, depending on who you ask). There is no way you can establish a base on the Moon nor colonize the solar system with that launch rate at that cost. For another, Orion is simply a manned ascent/descent capsule. It is too small to act as an interplanetary spacecraft carrying people for months to years to Mars or beyond.

These basic design problems of both SLS and Orion make them impractical for a program to explore and colonize the solar system. But that’s not all. Orion has other safety concerns. Its heat shield has technical problems that will only be fixed after the next planned Artemis-2 manned mission around the Moon. Its life support system has never flown in space, has issues also, and yet will also be used on the next manned flight.

Thus, it is very likely that when Jared Isaacman, Trump’s appointee for NASA administrator, takes over running the agency, he will call for the cancellation of both SLS and Orion. How can he ask others to fly on such an untested system?

When he does try to cancel both however the politics will require him to offer something instead that will satisfy all the power-brokers in DC who have skin in the game for SLS/Orion, from elected officials to big space companies to the bureaucrats at NASA. Isaacman is going to have to propose a new design for the Artemis program that these people will accept.

Artemis without SLS and Orion

Before I propose what Isaacman should do, let’s review what assets he will have available within the Artemis lunar program after cancelling these two boondoggles.
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Trump picks billionaire and private astronaut Jared Isaacman to run NASA

10:50 am

Jared Isaacman
Jared Isaacman

Capitalism in space: In a decision that is certain to send shock waves throughout NASA and the established aerospace industry, President-elect Donald Trump today announced that he has chosen billionaire and private astronaut Jared Isaacman to be his nominee for NASA administrator.

Isaacman quickly accepted the nomination.

Besides being a jet pilot with extensive experience in the aerospace industry, Isaacman has also commanded two space missions, financed out of his own pocket. Both missions used SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Resilience capsule. Both also pointedly avoided any involvement with NASA, spending several days in free Earth orbit instead of docking with ISS. The second mission achieved several major engineering milestones, testing the first privately built spacesuit during a spacewalk while also flying farthest from Earth since the 1970s Apollo missions.

These flights were part of Isaacman’s own long term space program, dubbed Polaris, with two more missions already in planning stages. The first would be another Dragon orbital mission in which Isaacman had tried to get NASA to shape as a Hubble repair mission. NASA declined. The second is intended as a manned mission around the Moon using SpaceX’s Starship.

That program will now likely get folded into NASA’s Artemis program, which we can all expect Isaacman to force major changes. For one thing, this is another blow to the future of SLS and Orion. As a very successful businessman Isaacman will look with great skepticism at this boondoggle.

For another, Isaacman’s markedly different experiences working with SpaceX versus NASA will likely encourage major bureaucratic changes at the space agency. It is almost certain that Isaacman’s manned flights avoided ISS in order to avoid its Byzantine red tape, that would have likely also blocked use of SpaceX’s spacesuit on a private spacewalk. NASA’s decision to reject Isaacman’s proposal to do a simple but very necessary Hubble repair mission will also likely influence his management of the agency. Isaacman is going to force NASA to depend on the private sector more. He is also likely to reduce the agency’s risk adverse mentality that while often reasonable is many times very counter-productive.

Unlike many of Trump’s other radical nominees, I would be very surprised if Isaacman is not confirmed quickly and with little opposition.

Whether Isaacman will still fly his two remaining private Polaris manned missions is at this moment unknown. Practically it would make sense to cancel them, since he will have much bigger fish to fry at NASA. Emotionally and politically however it would be truly spectacular to have NASA’s administrator fly in space, on a mission using no taxpayer funds. That more than anything would demonstrate the ability of freedom and private enterprise to get things done.

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Resilience splashes down safely, ending Polaris Dawn commercial manned orbital mission

12:48 am

SpaceX’s Resilience capsule has just splashed down safely in the Gulf of Mexico, ending the five-day Polaris Dawn private manned orbital mission, commanded by billionaire and jet pilot Jared Isaacman.

As of posting the capsule is still in the water with divers and boats on the way.

This completes the first mission in Isaacman’s planned three mission Polaris program. It was a complete success, doing a great deal of medical research on the effects of high orbit radiation on the human body as well as the first private spacewalk using SpaceX’s first EVA spacesuits. For Isaacman’s next mission he has already proposed doing a Hubble repair mission. NASA has had mixed feelings about this idea, but after this success it will be interesting if that attitude changes.

I must comment that the coverage by SpaceX employees on this mission was somewhat annoying. For the first time, they spent a lot of time giggling and focusing on PR and how “cool” and “incredible” and “wonderful” everything was, from amusing new decals in the capsule to the spacewalk to Sarah Gillis’ violin performance.

All of this was as great as they kept saying, which is why they didn’t need to say it, over and over and over and over and over again. It would have been better if they had done what SpaceX has generally done on previous broadcasts and missions, focused on describing the technical aspects and then staying silent otherwise. Gushing like this is more like a NASA or Blue Origin broadcast, and does not do SpaceX credit.

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Two astronauts on commercial Polaris Dawn manned mission complete spacewalk

9:37 am

Jared Isaacman during his 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.

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Polaris Dawn successfully reaches highest orbit for a human since Apollo

9:23 am

The view from 870 miles
The view from 870 miles. Click for video.

Polaris Dawn yesterday successfully climbed to an altitude of 870 miles yesterday, the farthest any human has been from Earth since the Apollo missions to the Moon, and the highest Earth orbit since Gemini 11 flew an apogee of 853 miles in 1966.

The four members of the Polaris Dawn mission, riding aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft “Resilience,” climbed into an elliptical orbit with a high point, or apogee, of 870 miles (1,400 kilometers) on Tuesday (Sep. 10). They reached the record distance about 15 hours after lifting off at 5:23 a.m. EDT (0923 GMT) from Florida earlier in the day and circling the planet about eight times in an initial orbit of 118 by 746 miles (190 by 1,200 km).

They maintained this high orbit for about ten hours in order to gather radiation data for future exploration, and then dropped down to a lower orbit where the planned spacewalk will occur on September 12th.

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Jared Isaacman’s private spacewalk manned mission launches on Falcon 9

8:39 am

Early this morning SpaceX successfully launched its Resilience Dragon capsule carrying four passengers on Jared Isaacman’s mission to do the first entirely private spacewalk. The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Resilience is flying its third flight. The first stage completed its fourth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The spacewalk will take place on September 12, 2024. In between the crew will spend the next two days preparing for that, while flying in an orbit with a apogee of 870 miles, the highest any person has flown from Earth since Apollo. That orbit will be lowered slightly for the spacewalk itself.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

89 SpaceX
38 China
10 Rocket Lab
9 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 104 to 57, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 89 to 72.

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Watch the launch of private manned Polaris Dawn

9:47 pm

The real rocket behind tonight's launch
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.

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Manned Polaris Dawn launch delayed due to weather

9:13 pm

SpaceX tonight scrubbed the launch of Jared Isaacman’s manned Polaris Dawn orbital mission due to poor weather predicted in the splashdown zones off the coast of Florida when the mission would have ended.

The flight has tentatively set now for August 30, 2024, but that remains a very preliminary date.

SpaceX however is not sitting on its hands while it waits for good weather for this manned mission. Tonight it has two Starlink launches scheduled a little more than an hour apart, one from Cape Canaveral in Florida followed by the second from Vandenberg in California. If the first launch is successful its Falcon 9 first stage will set a new record, flying for its 23rd time.

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SpaceX sets August 26, 2024 as new launch date for Polaris Dawn private manned mission

9:15 am

Jared Isaacman
Jared Isaacman

According to a post on X yesterday, SpaceX has rescheduled the launch of the private Polaris Dawn manned orbital flight to August 26, 2024. The flight is financed entirely by billionaire Jared Isaacman, who will also command the mission (his second in space).

The mission will launch on a Falcon 9, with the Dragon Resilience spacecraft carrying four private astronauts. During the orbital flight the capsule will attempt to fly as high as 870 miles, the highest any human will have flown since the Apollo missions. It will then attempt the first spacewalks by a private citizen ever. They will open a hatch, and Isaacman will push himself outside.

The schedule change from July 31st is almost certainly due to the uncertainties surrounding the return of Starliner from ISS, which have also caused uncertainties in the launch date of SpaceX’s next manned mission to ISS. With only two launchpads in Florida for both missions (plus other required launches), a lot of juggling has been required.

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Isaacman’s Polaris Dawn mission to launch July 31, 2024

9:32 am

Jared Isaacman
Jared Isaacman

According to a short notice on the Polaris Dawn webpage, Jared Isaacman’s manned orbital mission where he will do the first spacewalk by a private citizen is now targeting a launch date of July 31, 2024.

The four-person mission is planned to spend five days in orbit in SpaceX’s Resilience Dragon capsule, during which it will fly to as high as 870 miles, the highest orbit flown since Gemini 11 in 1966, and the farthest any human has flown from Earth since the Apollo lunar missions. That orbit will make possible some new radiation research:

[T]his is high enough to penetrate the inner band of the radioactive Van Allen Belts that encircle the Earth. This isn’t good for the crew consisting of Mission Commander Jared Isaacman, Mission Pilot Scott Poteet, Mission Specialist Sarah Gillis, and Mission Specialist and Medical Officer Anna Menon, but their initial orbit will be highly elliptical with a lower altitude of 120 miles (190 km), so their exposure will be minimal.

The purpose of this radiological game of chicken is to conduct 38 science experiments to study the effects of spaceflight and space radiation on human health. When these are completed, the altitude for the remainder of the five days in orbit will be reduced to 430 miles (700 km).

Isaacman will then attempt his spacewalk, opening a hatch on Resilience that replaced its docking port. While Isaacman will be the only one to exit the capsule, all four crew members will be in comparable spacesuits, since the capsule has no airlock and thus its entire atmosphere will escape during these activities.

If this mission is successful, I expect Isaacman will renew his push at NASA for making the goal of his next Polaris mission to replace the gyros on the Hubble Space Telescope. At the moment agency officials have expressed skepticism and seem uninterested. That might change however.

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NASA versus Isaacman/SpaceX on upgrading Hubble

12:19 pm

Link here. The NPR article is a long detailed look at NASA on-going review of the proposal by billionaire astronaut Jared Isaacman and SpaceX to to do a maintenance mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.

The NPR spin is subtly hostile to the mission, because it would be funded privately and run entirely by private citizens, not the government. Like all modern leftist news outlets, it can only imagine the government capable of doing such things properly.

Reading between the lines, however, what I instead sense is that NASA and the scientific community is generally quite enthusiastic about this proposal, but wants to make sure it not only is done safely but does nothing to harm Hubble in any way, both completely reasonable concerns. While there appear to be some individuals who are opposed for purely political and egotistically reasons — a desire to keep control of this turf no matter what — I don’t see that faction having much influence long term.

Whether this project can go forward I think will be largely determined by the success or failure of Isaacman’s next manned flight, dubbed Polaris Dawn and scheduled for this summer. On it he will attempt the first spacewalk by a private citizen, using SpaceX’s Resilience capsule and EVA spacesuit. If that spacewalk is a success, and he can demonstrate the ability to accomplish some complex tasks during the EVA, it will certainly ease the concerns of many about a follow-up repair mission to Hubble.

If it does proceed, the goal appears to be to attach new gyroscope hardware to the outside of Hubble, rather than replace the failed gyroscopes already in place. Such an approach will be simpler and more in line with the capabilities of a Dragon capsule, compared to the repair work the astronauts did on the space shuttle.

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SpaceX unveils the spacesuit Jared Isaacman will use to do the first private spacewalk

10:05 am

SpaceX this past weekend unveiled the spacesuit that Jared Isaacman will use on his Polaris Dawn mission, presently scheduled for this coming summer, to do the first spacewalk by a private citizen.

This spacewalk suit is based on SpaceX’s flight suits that astronauts presently wear when inside Dragon, but is much more capable. From SpaceX’s webpage:

Developed with mobility in mind, SpaceX teams incorporated new materials, fabrication processes, and novel joint designs to provide greater flexibility to astronauts in pressurized scenarios while retaining comfort for unpressurized scenarios. The 3D-printed helmet incorporates a new visor to reduce glare during the EVA in addition to the new Heads-Up Display (HUD) and camera that provide information on the suit’s pressure, temperature, and relative humidity. The suit also incorporates enhancements for reliability and redundancy during a spacewalk, adding seals and pressure valves to help ensure the suit remains pressurized and the crew remains safe.

Creating this suit was the main reason Isaacman’s five day orbital Polaris Dawn mission was delayed by almost two years.

I wonder what it cost SpaceX to develop this new suit. I strongly suspect it was much cheaper than the spacesuits NASA has hired Axiom and Collins Aerospace to create. It certainly has been built faster.

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Update on Jared Isaacman’s upcoming Polaris Dawn manned mission

9:37 am

Link here. Bottom line is that they still hope to launch on a five day orbital mission in SpaceX’s Resilience Dragon capsule later this year, during which they will do the first privately funded non-government spacewalk.

Developing new spacworthy spacesuits remains the biggest task before the mission can fly.

In a series of social media updates on Friday and Saturday, Isaacman answered some questions from the public about the progression of the suit development and the mission overall. He stated that over the past week, they “spent a lot of time pressurized in the EVA suits working contingencies.”

Isaacman clarified as well that, unlike missions to the International Space Station chartered by either NASA or Axiom Space, the crew members of the Polaris Dawn mission won’t launch and land while wearing IVA suits. He said because they are limited with space on this flight, they will only have their EVA suits.

No launch date has yet been set.

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The Polaris Dawn private space mission now targeting an April ’24 launch

9:14 am

The Polaris Dawn private space mission, the first of a three-mission private manned program being financed by billionaire Jared Isaacman, is now targeting an April 2024 launch.

In social media posts Dec. 9, Jared Isaacman, the billionaire backing the Polaris program and who is commanding the initial mission, said the launch of Polaris Dawn is now scheduled for April 2024. “April is the goal to launch & the pace of training is accelerating,” he wrote, stating that he was at SpaceX that day for testing of extravehicular activity (EVA) spacesuits that will be used on the mission.

Conducting a spacewalk is one of the major goals of Polaris Dawn, requiring both development of an EVA suit as well as modifications to the Crew Dragon, which lacks an airlock. Both of those have been challenges, he suggested in a subsequent post. There is a “big difference,” he wrote, between the pressure suits worn by Crew Dragon astronauts and an EVA suit “engineered from the start to be exposed to vacuum outside the spaceship.” The lack of an airlock also requires changes to Crew Dragon software and hardware to enable depressurization of the cabin before the start of the spacewalk and repressurization afterwards.

The mission’s launch has been delayed several times from its first launch target in 2022. This first flight of Isaacman’s Polaris program will, as noted, attempt the first spacewalk by a private citizen. The second would also fly on a Dragon capsule, but its mission remains unclear. Both NASA and Isaacman’s Polaris team have been studying the possibility of a repair mission to Hubble. The third mission would be on Starship, once it begins flying operationally.

Isaacman previously paid for and flew on SpaceX’s first commercial manned flight, Inspiration4, in September 2021.

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First mission in Isaacman’s private space program delayed again

9:56 am

The first mission in the Polaris space program of manned flights by billionaire Jared Isaacman, using SpaceX’s manned spacecraft and rockets, has now been delayed until early in 2024.

Isaacman, in the podcast interview, suggested the delays were linked to the development of a new spacesuit required for a spacewalk, the first by a private astronaut mission, planned for Polaris Dawn. “We’ve had a little bit more free time this summer than we probably would have expected,” he said, which he attributed to the timing of spacesuit development and training. That effort “doesn’t always sync up, so we’ve had a little more free time with family and work this summer.”

That new suit, billed as the first new spacesuit developed in the United States in four decades, is critical to future human activities on moon and Mars, he argued. “We’re going to need spacesuits that don’t cost hundreds of millions of dollars in order to do that. We’re pretty excited because the suit that we are testing out, the evolution of it someday could be very well worn by people that are walking on the moon or Mars.”

This mission, dubbed Polaris Dawn, will use a Falcon 9 and one of SpaceX’s fleet of four manned Dragon capsules to spend several days in Earth orbit while conducting that first private spacewalk. Isaacman’s entire Polaris program includes two more manned missions,the second possibly aimed at raising and even doing maintenance on the Hubble Space Telescope, and the third using Starship to go around the Moon.

Isaacman has already flown one private mission in space, in 2021, dubbed Inspiration4. It flew for three days in orbit, carrying four passengers, including Isaacman himself. Since it did not dock with ISS, it was an entirely private manned mission, with no significant government involvement.

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NASA requesting proposals for raising Hubble’s orbit

9:23 am

NASA has published a request for proposals from the private commercial space industry for a possible future mission to raise Hubble’s orbit.

NASA published a request for information (RFI) Dec. 22 asking industry how they would demonstrate commercial satellite servicing capabilities by raising the orbit of Hubble. The agency said it is looking for technical information about how a company would carry out the mission, the risks involved and the likelihood of success.

NASA emphasized in the RFI that it had no plans to procure a mission to reboost Hubble. “Partner(s) would be expected to participate and undertake this mission on a no-exchange-of-funds basis,” the document stated, with companies responsible for the cost for the mission.

Apparently, this RFI was issued as a direct result of the agreement between NASA and SpaceX to study a Dragon mission to do exactly this, which in turn was prompted by Jared Isaacman, as part of his private Polaris program of manned Dragon/Starship space flights. I suspect that NASA officials realized that not only were their engineering advantages to getting more proposals, there were probably legal and political reasons for opening the discussion up to the entire commercial space community.

Ideally, a Hubble reboost mission should occur by 2025, though the telescope’s orbit will remain stable into the mid-2030s.

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NASA extends Boeing’s contract to produce more SLS rockets

10:30 am

NASA yesterday announced that it will pay Boeing $3.2 billion for two more SLS rockets.

NASA has finalized its contract with Boeing of Huntsville, Alabama, for approximately $3.2 billion to continue manufacturing core and upper stages for future Space Launch System (SLS) rockets for Artemis missions to the Moon and beyond.

Under the SLS Stages Production and Evolution Contract action, Boeing will produce SLS core stages for Artemis III and IV, procure critical and long-lead material for the core stages for Artemis V and VI, provide the exploration upper stages (EUS) for Artemis V and VI, as well as tooling and related support and engineering services.

All this really means is that NASA is going depend on SLS and Orion to fly its astronauts to and from the Moon, and because of that its pace of flight will be — at best — slow and long-drawn out. For example, this new order extends the contract out to 2028. It will thus leave plenty of time for SpaceX and other nations to get there first.

I predict that the private Starship missions paid for by Yusaku Maezawa and Jared Isaacman will both fly before these two new Artemis missions. You heard it here first.

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First commercial passenger spacewalk on Dragon will involve depressurizing entire spacecraft

9:12 am

According to an interview to Space.com by the four crew members on next year’s private manned Dragon flight financed by Jared Isaacman, the spacewalk, the first involving commercial passengers, will include all four passengers, since Dragon will not have an airlock and will be depressurized entirely when the hatch opens.

“We’ve collectively taken the position that we’re all going for an EVA,” Isaacman said, adding that the spacecraft cabin is to be depressurized in a hard vacuum. “Whether you’re sticking your head outside, you are doing an EVA. We are contemplating two people on the outside of the vehicle,” Isaacman said, “and two would be inside making sure that everything is going correct.”

To accommodate the spacewalk, this Crew Dragon will not be outfitted with a transparent dome, as was the case for the Inspiration4 mission.

The mission is presenting targeting March ’23 for launch.

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Isaacman’s next private mission to space now scheduled for March ’23

9:53 am

Jared Isaacman’s next private mission on a Dragon capsule, dubbed Polaris Dawn, has now been scheduled for March ’23, during which the first spacewalk by a private citizen will occur.

The mission is planned to last five days, will have a crew of four led by Isaacman, and will also attempt the highest Earth orbit flown by any manned mission. From the mission’s webpage:

At approximately 700 kilometers above the Earth (434 miles), the crew will attempt the first-ever commercial extravehicular activity (EVA) with SpaceX-designed extravehicular activity (EVA) spacesuits, upgraded from the current intravehicular (IVA) suit.

It is not clear if one or all four of the crew members will participate in that spacewalk. At a minimum, all four must be in suits that can work during a spacewalk, since their Dragon capsule does not have an airlock.

The mission will also be used as to raise funds for St. Jude Children’s Hospital, as was done during Isaacman’s first flight, Inspiration4, in the fall of 2021.

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SpaceX and Jared Isaacman offer private mission to NASA to raise Hubble’s orbit

9:44 am

Capitalism in space: In a press release issued yesterday, NASA revealed that it has signed an unfunded agreement with SpaceX and Jared Isaacman’s Polaris program (which has purchased a series of manned missions on Dragon) to study the possibility of sending one of those private manned missions to the Hubble Space Telescope to raise its orbit.

SpaceX – in partnership with the Polaris Program – proposed this study to better understand the technical challenges associated with servicing missions. This study is non-exclusive, and other companies may propose similar studies with different rockets or spacecraft as their model.

Teams expect the study to take up to six months, collecting technical data from both Hubble and the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. This data will help determine whether it would be possible to safely rendezvous, dock, and move the telescope into a more stable orbit.

In my book describing the history of the people who created Hubble, The Universe in a Mirror, I repeatedly noted how throughout its history people have tried to kill it, first in the design phase, then in the budget, then during construction, then after it was launched and the mirror was found to be ground incorrectly, and then after the Columbia accident when NASA management tried to cancel its last shuttle servicing mission.

Every attempt failed. As I have noted in that book and many times since its publication, Hubble is a telescope that will not die. NASA has for years intended to launch a mission to de-orbit it when its orbit had decayed enough that it was unstable. I’ve always said that when that time came, someone would propose and push for a mission to instead raise that orbit.

That prediction is now coming true. Though no robot arm exists yet for Dragon to use to grab Hubble in any rendezvous attempt, creating one is hardly difficult. At that point raising the telescope’s orbit becomes relatively trivial.

Whether such a mission could do more, such as replace Hubble’s ailing gyroscopes, is unknown. It would be foolish however not to review that possibility as well.

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Next private SpaceX manned targeting December launch

9:31 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX is now planning to launch in December the next private manned Dragon orbital mission, dubbed Polaris Dawn, and led by billionaire Jared Isaacman, who led the previous private Inspiration4 mission in September 2021.

Polaris Dawn is the first of three separate crewed launches, all of them funded by Isaacman. This first effort will see Isaacman flying a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft alongside Sarah Gillis, Anna Menon and Scott Poteet. (Both Gillis and Menon work at SpaceX.) The second launch aims to use a Dragon while the third is scheduled as the first crewed mission for Starship, SpaceX’s next-generation spacecraft.

…Among the mission’s aims is the first spacewalk, or extravehicular activity (EVA), of a private astronaut. The crew will use SpaceX-developed EVA suits for the effort. Crew Dragon will be depressurized for the spacewalk in a similar way that NASA’s Gemini capsules were in the 1960s, requiring all crew members to wear suits designed for a vacuum environment.

By not flying to ISS, Isaacman and SpaceX avoid the high fees NASA charges as well as its extensive requirements.

By remaining in orbit however the length of the mission will be limited to only a few days, rather than weeks. Thus, it underlines the growing need for private commercial space stations, not controlled by the government.

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SpaceX and Jared Isaacman announce another private Dragon flight

7:24 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX and Jared Isaacman, the man who organized and commanded the Inspiration4 private commercial manned Dragon flight last fall, today announced a second private commercial Dragon flight, scheduled for this coming fall.

SpaceX plans to launch a new private astronaut mission, Polaris Dawn, from Florida as early as Nov. 1 and will attempt to conduct the first private spacewalk in history, the company announced Monday.

Businessman Jared Isaacman, founder and CEO of the payments company Shift4, will command the mission, having previously he led the first all-private orbital mission in September known as Inspiration4. Isaacman is an experienced jet pilot.

The crew will also include two SpaceX engineers, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, as mission specialists and Isaacman’s business associate, Scott “Kidd” Poteet, as pilot.

The flight will attempt to achieve a higher orbit than even the highest flights during the U.S. space program’s Gemini missions that flew 853 miles above the Earth with astronauts Pete Conrad and Richard Gordon.

Isaacman has also tied this flight to more fundraising for St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, suggesting that he was very happy with the charity received in connection with his Inspiration4 spaceflight. If this new flight comes off as planned, Isaacman will follow it up with two more SpaceX manned flights.

For the spacewalk, SpaceX will have to complete the development of its own EVA spacesuit, and have four suits available for the crew since Dragon capsules do not have an airlock.

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Watching the first all-private commercial manned orbital spaceflight

11:20 pm

Liberty and freedom enlightening the world
Liberty and freedom enlightening not only the world,
but the entire solar system.

Bumped: I will be out on a cave trip for most of today, September 15, 2021, so I’ve moved this post to the top of the page, as it clearly will be the most important space news today. I should be back before launch, but if not, enjoy!

Original post:
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Capitalism in space: Let’s begin by underlining one fundamental fact about the Inspiration4 manned Dragon orbital space mission, targeted for a September 15th launch tomorrow evening, that makes it different from every other orbital space mission ever flown since Yuri Gagarin completed the first manned mission in 1961:

The government has nothing to do with it.

The launch facilities, the rocket, the capsule, the drone ship where the rocket’s first stage will land, and the entire recovery operation in the ocean are all controlled and owned by SpaceX. The passengers are private citizens, one of whom purchased the flight directly from SpaceX.

It is was organized by 38-year-old billionaire and entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, who is also a highly-capable jet warbird aircraft pilot. When he found out from SpaceX he could be the first to fly an all-commercial mission in Crew Dragon, he fronted $100 million to $200 million required and partnered with St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in a campaign to give away two of the missions seats and raise $200 Million for children’s cancer research.

Every person you will see in mission control, at the launchpad, and on the recovery ships are also private citizens, working for a private company that just happens to be in the business of flying rockets, spaceships, and humans into space. None are government employees, and I would suspect that most don’t want to be.

Not only is this mission privately run, its goals are completely different. While all past space launches were flown for purposes decided by the government, this mission’s goals have been determined by the free participants themselves. SpaceX is making money on the flight, Isaacman and his passengers are getting the chance to fulfill their long-held personal dream of going into space, and Isaacman is also using this flight to raise money for cancer research, a personal passion of his.

The flight itself will be unusual. It will be the first manned mission in more than a decade, since the last shuttle repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, to not go to an orbiting space station. Instead, the capsule will spend three days free-flying in orbit around the Earth. To enhance the flight for the passengers, SpaceX removed the docking port on Resilience (the capsule) and replaced it with a viewing port with large windows.

The orbit itself will in a sense push the envelope, as SpaceX plans to loft the capsule to an altitude of about 370 miles, considerably higher than ISS’s orbit of about 260 miles and about 35 miles higher than the mission to Hubble. In fact, the Inspiration4 crew will be the farthest from the Earth’s surface than any human in decades, possibly going back as far as the Apollo era.

For watching this flight I have embedded SpaceX’s live stream below, which you can also find here. You will also be able to find that stream at SpaceX’s YouTube page, where the company is also airing preflight videos.

This mission illustrates the fundamentals that built the United States of America. Give humans freedom, don’t try to tell them what to do, and they will do astonishing and magnificent things, on their own.
» Read more

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Second passenger chosen for private manned SpaceX mission

11:37 pm

Capitalism in space: Jared Isaacman, who has purchased an entire Dragon/Falcon 9 flight for the first private commercial manned mission scheduled for later this year, has picked the flight’s second passenger.

The second member of a four-person crew for what’s likely to be the first privately funded orbital space tour has been identified: She’s Hayley Arceneaux, a 29-year-old physician assistant who works at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. — and was successfully treated for bone cancer at St. Jude almost two decades ago.

Arceneaux was invited to be part of the Inspiration4 mission weeks ago by its commander and principal funder, Shift4 Payments CEO and founder Jared Isaacman — but her identity was kept secret until today.

This choice fits Isaacman’s main goal, which is to use the publicity of the flight in raise money for St. Jude’s. So far almost $10 million has been raised.

Two more passengers need to be chosen. One will be picked from a lottery of people who donate to St. Jude’s, with the second being an entrepreneur picked by a panel of judges. The deadline to enter both slots closes on February 28th.

As for the flight itself, it will spend two to four days in orbit.

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