American billionaire Jared Isaacman on Thursday conducted the first commercial “spacewalk” hundreds of miles above the surface of the Earth.
Isaacman, along with SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis, briefly experienced the vacuum of space to test the company’s new spacesuits during the five-day Polaris Dawn mission. Although the pair did not technically leave the spacecraft, it was the first time that nonprofessional astronauts from a private company have conducted a spacewalk. Most spacewalks are conducted by government-funded professional astronauts who enter space usually to repair the International Space Station.
