Tech billionaire Jared Isaacman became the first-ever civilian to start a spacewalk early Thursday —after already traveling the farthest from Earth a human being has gone since the Apollo moon missions.
Footage of the daring stunt showed Isaacman, 41, popping out of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule as he came face-to-face with the dark vacuum of space just before 7 a.m.
It comes after SpaceX suddenly delayed the planned start of the spacewalk by a few hours.
No explanation was immediately given for the delay, but the company said via X that “all systems are looking good.”
Isaacman and his three crewmembers began preparing for the endeavor soon after blasting into orbit on Tuesday for a five-day flight.
Isaacman and the crew were kept safe during the two-hour mission thanks to the new SpaceX suits he helped design.
Officials had said Isaacman, the billionaire CEO and founder of the credit card processing company Shift4, would remain tethered and keep at least one hand or foot on the craft to ensure his safety.
A longer, untethered spacewalk was not possible because only NASA suits are currently equipped with jetpacks that can guide an astronaut back to safety.
Because the Crew Dragon does not have a pressurized airlock, all the crew members needed to wear the new spacesuits to protect them from the vacuum conditions during the mission.
Isaacman was joined on the mission by SpaceX engineers Sarah Gills and Anna Menon, as well as former Air Force Thunderbirds pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet.
Gills was scheduled to join Isaacman on the spacewalk, which previously has been the exclusive domain of professional astronauts.
The spacewalk took place after Isaacman and the crew reached a a distance of nearly 870 miles above the Earth, well beyond the International Space Station and surpassing the Earth-lapping record set during NASA’s Project Gemini in 1966.
Only the 24 Apollo mission astronauts who flew to the moon have ventured farther into space.
While the trip would normally be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, it is just the first of three trips Isaacman purchased from Elon Musk in 2022.
Isaacman, who has not publicly stated how much his SpaceX trips cost, was among the first group of tourists who flew to space in 2021.
During that trip, Isaacman set a record by being the first space tourist to circle the Earth without having a professional astronaut aboard.