What would you do in your spare time if you were worth over $2 billion? Buy another home? Retire early? Travel?
Or perhaps lead an orbital spaceflight nearly 600 km above the Earth’s surface—twice?
That is exactly what Jared Isaacman, founder and CEO of payment processing company Shift4, is doing. Isaacman announced this week that he would be splitting the cost with SpaceX to send him and a crew of three other civilian space travelers on a five-day trip orbiting the Earth which could break several records, including attempting the first civilian spacewalk.
The program is called Polaris and will include up to three spaceflights over the next several years, according to a tweet put out by Polaris’ account and shared by Isaacman. Its inaugural flight, named Polaris Dawn, could lift off before the end of 2022 on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon space capsule, while two further Polaris missions will fly at unknown dates.
Isaacman did not immediately return Coins2Day’s request for comment.
This will not be Isaacman’s first time in space, as the billionaire already funded and captained the Inspiration4 mission that took place last September, also launched by SpaceX, which made history as the first all-civilian crewed spaceflight in history.
Isaacman will be accompanied by former U.S. Air Force member Scott Poteet, who has worked with him at a number of his businesses for years. Isaacman chose Poteet to join him on the voyage after the pilot’s successful stint as Mission Director on the Inspiration4 program. The mission will also include two current SpaceX employees: Sarah Gillis, who oversees the company’s astronaut training program, and Anna Menon, who has previously worked in Mission Control and crew operations for the company.
The Polaris Dawn mission, which has its own website, has a few main goals. The crew will attempt to reach the highest orbital distance ever flown to conduct research on the effects of solar radiation in high-Earth orbit on human health during spaceflight. They will also test out a new plan for an interplanetary communication system based on laser technology using Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites. Starlink, another Musk venture that is attempting to provide fast Internet coverage across the globe, currently has at least 2,000 satellites in orbit.
The Polaris Dawn crew will also attempt the first-ever civilian spacewalk with suits specially designed by SpaceX for this purpose. While neither SpaceX nor Isaacman have announced which astronaut will be performing the spacewalk, this is the first time someone who does not work for a government will be stepping out into space.
The Polaris mission is the latest in a growing line of civilian space travel ventures. Before the Inspiration4 flight launched off last year, Jeff Bezos and three other passengers had already ascended to orbit with his private spaceflight company, Blue Origin, competing at the time with Richard Branson’s own Virgin Galactic space expedition, when the British businessman became the first billionaire in space.
The Polaris mission is notable for the groundwork it is setting for SpaceX’s plans for its Starship system. Isaacman and Polaris are planning on launching a third and final flight at an unannounced date which will double as the first crewed spaceflight of Elon Musk’s cherished Starship, a transportation system SpaceX and NASA plan to use to fly humans to the moon within the end of the decade.