SpaceX Could Defeat NASA Back To The Moon With A Billionaire Mission

The first flight in the series of missions, dubbed “Polaris” after North Star, is scheduled to begin later this year and will last up to five days and include a crew of Isaacman and three other people. The crew will tour space, a first for anyone traveling aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule. Isaacman announced on NBC’s Today Show Monday morning and in an interview with Washington Post.

The entire Inspiration 4 mission has been billed as a fundraising drive from St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, and has generated a total of $243 million for the organization. Isaacman donated about $100 million, Musk gave another $50 million and the rest was raised through public donations. Polaris missions are also expected to support the same cause.

On the first Polaris mission, Isaacman will be joined by veteran Air Force fighter pilot Scott Poteet and two SpaceX operations engineers – Sarah Gillies and Anna Menon, who will serve as the onboard medical officer. Isaacman will be the only crew member with previous spaceflight experience.

Poteet is a former Vice President of Shift 4. They are also frequent airline partners.

Gillis and Menon may be the first SpaceX employees to travel to space.

Details about the spacewalk the Polaris crew plans to perform on the first flight are light, but a press release states that they will use a “SpaceX-designed Extravehicular Spacesuit (EVA), which has been upgraded from the current in-vehicle (IVA) suit.” The IVA suit refers to the black and white compressed spacesuits worn by NASA astronauts and the Inspiration 4 crew aboard the Dragon during launch and return.

Also on Polaris’ first mission, the crew will test the use of Starlink – SpaceX’s satellite internet business – for communications in space. So far, Starlink has only been used to send internet connectivity to customers on the ground, but Polaris’ press release notes that the system could be used to support communications during orbital flights.

Starship

The flight schedule of the Isaacman spacecraft is not entirely clear. During a presentation about the Starship in Texas last week, Musk said that while he hopes the vehicle — which has so far conducted short, sub-orbital “jump tests” — will conduct its first orbital flight test this year, without a crew. However, that may depend on whether federal regulators give SpaceX approval to launch the Starship from southern Texas, where the company has already built an orbital launch pad and the vast majority of the Starship’s resources are located.

It could mean that Isaacman jumps to the first billionaire who bought the Starship mission – Japanese fashion mogul Yusaku Maezawa. Maezawa has paid SpaceX an undisclosed amount of money to secure a seat for himself and a group of artists on the spacecraft’s flight around the moon, hoping to take off as soon as 2023. Maezawa is still in the process of deciding who to take with him.

Musk also said during the presentation that he hoped the Starship would cost less than $10 million per flight within a few years, which, if possible, would be much cheaper than any other rocket on the market.

The spacecraft is expected to be far more powerful than any rocket ever built by mankind. Musk said he would boast about the poor thrust of the Saturn 5 rockets that drove moon landings in the past century.