Polaris Dawn opens a new chapter in space

IT WAS A VERY BIG DEAL ON SEPT. 14, 1966, WHEN ASTROnauts Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon flew their Gemini 11 spacecraft to a record altitude of 850 miles. It has remained a big deal for 58 years, while that benchmark for a crewed spacecraft in Earth orbit remained.

- JEFFREY KLUGER

But things are changing: the crew members of the Polaris Dawn mission are set to fire their thrusters and climb to a new record of 870 miles, venturing farther from home than any other astronauts on a nonlunar mission have ever traveled.

The Polaris Dawn crew look to notch other achievements too-becoming the first commercial astronauts to perform extravehicular activity (EVA, also known as a spacewalk), and the first to test communications between a spacecraft and the satellites that make up the SpaceX Starlink system. Also on the manifest: a suite of more than 40 scientific experiments, testing the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft at altitudes that would take it through the Van Allen radiation belts, and more than a dozen studies of the crew members themselves, including exploring what to do about the stubborn problem of space motion sickness, which is experienced by 60% to 80% of all space travelers during their first two or three days off Earth. In addition, Polaris Dawn-which had a planned launch date of Aug. 26, before that date moved several times-hopes to raise tens of millions of dollars for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

The mission has been bankrolled by Jared Isaacman, the founder and CEO of Shift4, an internet payment company. Polaris Dawn marks Isaacman's second trip to space, after the mission of Inspiration4, in September 2021. That journey too raised money for St. Jude, Isaacman's favorite charity, and was the first time an allcivilian crew went to space. For both missions, Isaacman was a paying customer of SpaceX, buying seats aboard the Dragon at a reported $50 million each. But Polaris Dawn has a bigger mission, kicking off the first of three flights in the Polaris series, which could produce two firsts: private crews performing maintenance on the Hubble Space Telescope and the maiden mission of SpaceX's cuttingedge Starship rocket.