by CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — First came space tourism. Now there’s an even bigger thrill for the wealthy masses: spacewalks.
The stage is set for the first private spacewalk on Thursday. Tech billionaire Jared Isaacman will jump from the hatch of his orbiting SpaceX capsule, two days after launching from Florida on a chartered flight that took him and his crew higher than anyone has been since NASA’s moonwalks. He’s teamed up with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to buy a series of rocket flights and help develop brand-new spacesuits.
SpaceX is the first private company to attempt a spacewalk. Until now, this was only possible for 12 countries. There’s a reason it’s such an exclusive and elite group: spacewalks are considered the most dangerous part of any flight after launch and reentry, and require extensive training.
“Spacewalks are a completely different thing than just strapping yourself into a rocket, flying along, experiencing weightlessness for a while and coming back,” said retired NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy.
Cassidy knows the dangers of spacewalking firsthand: In 2013, he was working outside the International Space Station when his partner, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano, nearly drowned. Parmitano’s helmet filled with water from his cooling suit and he made it back inside just in time. With 30 minutes left in the day, “the answer could be different,” Cassidy says.
Cassidy fears there is a “slippery slope” where rich people with minimal training might try to jump to the front of the spacewalk queue.
Risk and disaster analyst Ilan Kelman of University College London said it was “appropriate and inevitable” that amateurs would conduct spacewalks, but he expects there will be fatalities along the way.
“There is a lot we can and should do to reduce the risk,” Kelman said. “We need to be completely honest with everyone involved, especially given the slim chance of rescue if something bad goes wrong.”
This spacewalk will be unlike what normally happens on the International Space Station, where astronauts float out for repairs. Isaacman and SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis will venture just outside the capsule as it floats more than 430 miles above Earth. Their orbit was originally set to double that height, but was scaled down for the spacewalk.
The four-person crew is not only new to spacewalking, but will also be testing out brand new suits. All will be exposed to the vacuum of space, as the Dragon capsule does not have an airlock, unlike larger spacecraft.
For Isaacman, destroying and then restoring the cabin atmosphere is the riskiest part of the undertaking.
“Nothing can go wrong or get off track on this trip,” Isaacman said. “We’ll only stay out there as long as we need to get the data.”
Most of their training over the past two years has focused on the spacewalk, the culmination of their planned five-day flight. SpaceX has put significant preparation and testing into the capsule and suits, said SpaceX’s Bill Gerstenmaier, a former NASA executive.
For safety reasons, Isaacman and Gillis will always keep one foot or hand on the capsule or the ladder-like support they will place above the hatch. They will be tethered to 12-foot (3.6-meter) lines, but there will be no rope dangling from the ends.
The duo will take turns coming out of the hatch, spending 15 to 20 minutes each outside while flexing and testing their suits. Their crewmates – SpaceX engineer Anna Menon and former Air Force Thunderbird pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet – will monitor the spacewalk from inside.
The entire spacewalk is expected to last no longer than two hours. Isaacman declined to say how much he invested in the flight.
To date, according to NASA statistics, 263 people from a dozen countries have performed spacewalks, led by Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov in 1965, closely followed by NASA’s Ed White.
China, the only other country to have sent its own citizens into space, joined the spacewalker club in 2008. Europe, Japan, Canada and the United Arab Emirates have also seen their astronauts floating in space, but always in NASA or Russian clothing and under NASA or Russian control.
Since SpaceX wants to send humans to the moon and Mars, “we have to start somewhere, and the first step is what we’re doing on this mission,” Gillis said.
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