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Jared Isaacman (left) and the rest of the Polaris Dawn crew Image: Polaris
Posted on 02/14/2022 9:17:16 AM PST by BenLurkin
Jared Isaacman, the billionaire who flew to Earth orbit on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule last year, plans to fly with SpaceX again. Today, Isaacman announced that he’s purchased three additional upcoming flights with SpaceX, a series of missions called “Polaris” that would take him deeper into space on the company’s spacecraft.
Isaacman, who made his fortune through his payment processing company Shift4 Payments, made headlines last year when he bankrolled an entire SpaceX Crew Dragon passenger mission in September, dubbed Inspiration4. He filled the three remaining seats on the vehicle with other civilian astronauts, including a childhood cancer survivor, an engineer, and a professor. The quartet all trained and eventually flew to orbit together on a three-day trip while raising money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
The three flights he’s bought include two missions on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon that would fly to super-high orbits around Earth — building block missions that would eventually lead to the first crewed flight on the company’s massive new Starship rocket. On the first Crew Dragon trip, called Polaris Dawn, Isaacman plans to fly again. He’s filling the remaining seats with two SpaceX employees, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, as well as Scott “Kidd” Poteet, a former Air Force pilot who was the mission director for Inspiration4. And the flight would also serve as another St. Jude fundraising opportunity.
Jared Isaacman (left) and the rest of the Polaris Dawn crew Image: Polaris
(Excerpt) Read more at theverge.com ...
If at first you don’t get killed, try and try again.
They should offer a ten pack.
I don’t fault him. If I had money to burn, I’d probably take the trip as well. More power to him.
Do they happen to know how high are they planning on going?
Other than the Apollo missions, I think Hubble was at around 400 miles when the Space Shuttle serviced it. The ISS is around 220 miles.
I know of no other manned missions by us or the Russians that went that high….
Unless there was some classified stuff going on higher up.
Wouldn’t surprise me.
I think it’s a neat idea, and I will be following it, but the question I have is, just how well trained will the passengers be?
NASA’s astronauts would typically train years for a mission.
the woman with blond hair looks a bit like Katee Sackhoff from Battlestar Galactica.
remember the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsules aren’t the old Apollo Command Module, where the crew is staring at a complex plethora of switches and manual displays. The Crew Dragon is primarily four touchscreen display panels, a lot easier to read and interpret.
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The Dragon is also quite spacious compared to the old Apollo capsule. Space-X is building and flying truly 21st century spaceships.
There, fixed it.
It is not. It is a ride to orbit aboard SpaceX.
"SpaceX is working toward getting Starship into orbit sometime this year, though its test flights are partly contingent on the Federal Aviation Administration granting SpaceX regulatory approval to launch Starship from the company’s South Texas launch facility. A decision on whether or not to grant that approval is expected at the end of the month.""The company must develop life support systems, figure out how to fuel the vehicle in space, and show that it can land the people back on Earth after returning from deep space. It’s likely years of development ahead."
“There’s going to be some future announcements that I think people will be pretty fired up about,” Musk said. “So anyway, super exciting future ahead with this.”
Musk quote not quite right - he's talking about future announcements from other people.
SpaceX has an identical facility at the Cape ready to go and launch approved - no Texas permit - the whole Texas assembly moves to the Cape in 3-6 months, at most. The FAA hold up is a bunch of environmental weenie paperwork recently made worse by the new resident's admin.
First launch of the Starship expected in March or shortly there after.
Most of the development work has been done on refueling, and getting crew to moon just needs a bigger Dragon capsule - Mars is an other kettle of fish.
As for landing the towers have already been designed - took 6 months from design to build complete. The towers will catch the boosters, then the StarShips in a ready to relaunch configuration.
Starship booster will be 2X the Saturn V lift to orbit. The biggest problem now is keeping the Raptor2 engine bells from melting. The whole of the Starship program is predicated on at least 3 launches a month, going to continuous launches separated by 3-4 hours.
16 years old!? Wow. Amazing.
Do they happen to know how high are they planning on going?
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Higher than the Inspiration4 which went to 364 mi. These are basically up and down missions, not true orbital missions lasting many days, weeks or months.
That is dyed blonde hair. Not natural
i believe they want to go as high as hubble, or maybe the limit of the old Gemini 11 in the 60’s
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