Billionaire Jared Isaacman blasting off on five-day space mission | Space

It’s one small step for a billionaire…

Pilot and philanthropist Jared Isaacman is poised to make history Tuesday morning as he blasts off as leader of the Polaris Dawn space mission.

Leaving from Cape Canaveral, Florida, he is part of a four-person crew attempting to go further from planet Earth than any space-tourist before them in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. He is also poised to become the first private citizen to complete a “spacewalk”.

If the space thrusters do their jobs correctly, Isaacman, 41, will ascend 17 miles beyond where any astronaut who did not continue on to the moon managed.

Isaacman previously self-funded a three-day space trip in 2021 which was estimated by Florida Today to have cost as much as $200 million.

While he’s not given a figure for the current five-day venture, it’s believed to have cost even more.

The plan is for him and a three person crew – comprised of Scott “Kidd” Poteet (a former Air Force pilot and an Isaacman pal) plus SpaceX engineers Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis – to reach an altitude of some 870 miles.

Though the trip qualifies as space tourism, it is being undertaken in conjunction with Elon Musk and his SpaceX company, who are also using…

Source nypost.com