Four members of the crew of the Polaris Dawn returned to Earth on Sunday, having completed a historic mission that included a spacewalk.
While plenty of astronauts have ventured outside the confines of a space capsule in the past, these adventurers were not part of NASA, or any other government-sponsored space mission. They were private citizens, whose trip was sponsored by a billionaire.
Tech expert Omar Gallaga wrote about Polaris Dawn for CNET.
Highlights from this segment:
– The Polaris Dawn craft was launched by SpaceX, and funded by billionaire entrepreneur, Jared Isaacman, who commanded the mission.
– Isaacman has been to space before, and his crew, though not NASA astronauts, have backgrounds in flight and space training.
– Palaris Dawn conducted experiments in human weightlessness, and conducted work for satellite Internet provider, Starlink. That company, like SpaceX, is owned by Elon Musk.
