in space, a big step for the private sector – Libération

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Space Envoys

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Starting this Tuesday, September 10, four amateur astronauts embarked by American billionaire Jared Isaacman will spend five days in orbit, and two of them will even attempt a spacewalk. A new step in the history of private space exploration.

Private space exploration is gaining momentum, and a new milestone will be reached this Tuesday, September 10 with the launch of the Polaris Dawn mission (which is two weeks late due to bad weather), organized by American billionaire Jared Isaacman. Four private astronauts will be sent to an exceptional altitude around the Earth and two of them will attempt a spacewalk in a spacesuit. A first in history.

Jared Isaacman has been planning space missions for over three years now. This entrepreneur who made his fortune thanks to the Shift4 payment system, who is also an airplane pilot and passionate about space exploration, approached the company SpaceX to realize his dream of taking to the skies in 2021. It was the Inspiration4 mission. Isaacman had chosen three companions who were as new to weightlessness as he was: a geology professor who almost became a NASA astronaut during a recruitment a few years earlier, a medical assistant at a children’s hospital who was cured of bone cancer, and a veteran of the US Air Force, a long-time activist for opening up spaceflight to the private sector.

Isaacman had paid for the four tickets to SpaceX, for a total of

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