Billionaire Jared Isaacman Makes History With the First Private Spacewalk on SpaceX Polaris Dawn

After the SpaceX capsule depressurized, its billionaire mission commander opened the hatch and climbed out into the vacuum of space hundreds of miles above the Earth early Thursday—the first private spacewalk in human history.

Tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman became the first non-professional astronaut to venture outside a spacecraft while in orbit.

Joe Skipper

“Back at home, we all have a lot of work to do,” he said as he looked down at our planet. “But from here, it sure looks like a perfect world.”

Isaacman was outside the craft for around 10 minutes, performing stretches and other bodily motions to test SpaceX’s new spacewalking suits. Sarah Gillis, a SpaceX engineer, then also went out and performed the same gestures once Isaacman was back inside.

The 41-year-old Isaacman—who founded the company Shift4 Payments and is estimated by Forbes to be worth around $1.9 billion—is bankrolling the five-day Polaris Dawn mission in conjunction with Elon Musk’s space company. He previously funded and led the first commercial, exclusively civilian crew to orbit Earth in 2021.

His unfathomably expensive hobby was nevertheless hailed by Bill Nelson, the NASA administrator, as an important moment in spacefaring.

“Today’s success represents a giant leap forward for the commercial space industry and @NASA’s long-term goal to build a vibrant U.S. space economy,” Nelson wrote in a post on X.