The Polaris Dawn spacewalk is SpaceX’s ‘risky adventure’

Early Tuesday afternoon, the Polaris Dawn ship rose from Site 39A at the Kennedy Galactic Center in Florida. For the first time in days, the crew appears to be performing a sincere personal exit into space under these circumstances. Chandan Khanna/AFP via Gett y-images Hide caption

Sign Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images

A SpaceX rocket will launch early Tuesday afternoon with four astronauts on the world's first paid space flight. The launch from the Kennedy Space Station in Florida is one of SpaceX's most crucial missions.

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Civilian Polaris Dawn spacewalk mission is set to make history next week

If all goes as expected, Internet entrepreneur Jared Eisekman and SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis will be the first private astronauts to leave the spacecraft and cross the region on a space branch by a certain date. At this point, important images of the planet that could only be seen by professional astronauts on the official business of the galactic agency will be revealed for them.

But experts warn that almost anything can go wrong. A sincere space escape involves risks that are incomparable to a trip in a capsule or a visit to the International Galactic Station. The mission will use parts that have never been tested in space before, including the spacesuit itself. And three of the astronauts have never been to space in general, so professionalism and dashing establishment will be required.

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An exit similar to Sincere Cosmos is a "dangerous adventure," accepts Bill Herstenmeyer, SpaceX's vice president of flight establishment and reliability, who was previously appointed head of human spaceflight at NASA.

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But he even claims that the company is ready. "We plan to manage it as long as it's reasonably likely, and we have the right protocols in place and we have the right checks in place to prepare for flight," Herstenmeyer said at a press conference last month.

A giant leap, for a price

The mission, known as "Polaris Dawn," is considered a big leap for paid galactic travel. Until now, most galactic travelers have either taken temporary suborbital flights that offer a certain amount of weightlessness time, or sailed (for a rather huge amount of money) to the International Galactic Station. In 2021, Isekman spent several days in Earth orbit in a SpaceX capsule.

Scott Push, Anna Menon, Sarah Gillis, and Jared Isekman (left to right) are planning the first private escape into space. Gillis and Isekman will exit their Dragon capsule, fly over the region, and board SpaceX's new spacecraft for a paid galactic flight. John Kraus/Polaris - Program to Hide Signature

Sign John Kraus/ Program "Polaris

He paid the outstanding funding for this goal, which is one of three planned as part of the Polaris program. Isaacman floated the idea of ​​applying the second goal to the service of the Hubble Galaxy Telescope, but NASA said a while ago that it would not happen at that time because they were not sure if it was worth the risk.

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During this mission, the four astronauts will stand on SpaceX's new space suits to deflate the Dragon capsule. Isaacman, the mission commander, and Gillis will then open the hatch and spend some time outside the capsule in an oxygen-filled umbilical. Mission pilot Scott and honeymooner SpaceX employee Anna Menon will wait inside the capsule.

The appeal of serious space access is clear. The image is coolly revealed in the text of Galaxy Agency Euroastronaut Luke Parmitano's six outputs into serious space.

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"It's almost like time slowed down a second, or your heart slowed down a second."

But Parmitano says that the exit to sincere space is still on a physical level, and even psychologically complex. Space suits are pressure-inducing, and in fact, they prepare rigid and inflexible ones.

"During the sincere space exit, at some point you get hot, you get cold, your hands get sick. You have to come to terms with this.

And almost anything can go wrong. In 2013, while going into outer space on the International Galactic Station, Parmitano's helmet started filling with water from the system that seals the space suit. At zero-G standards, capillary pressure caused the water to basically cling to his skin and start creeping up to his head.

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"My eyes and ears were blocked, and water was running up to my nose," Parmitano recalls. As a result of the loss of his walkie-talkie, he never had a chance to submit. "I was stranded once. I couldn't see anything, hear anything, had no chance to talk."

Heating up

Escapes to the Cynthia Cosmos (commercially known as extra-space flights, or EVAs) were among the most unsafe parts of galactic travel. According to Emily Margolis, curator of advanced galactic flight at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, during the first US escapes to the Cynthia Cosmos in the 1960s as part of Project Gemini, there were frequent disputes among crew members over expenses.

Of the nine voyages to the Cynthia Cosmos as part of Project Gemini, three ended ahead of schedule.

For example, during his Gemini 9 flight, astronaut Jean Cernan had to go through a kind of rocket bag to help astronauts move in space. His spacesuit had a metal coating to protect it from exhaust fumes from the rocket blocks, but this coating made movement very complicated.

In this photo taken from a NASA video, Italian astronaut Luke Parmitano (bottom right) with some new pumps for the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer outside the International Space Station on December 2, 2019. AP/NASA hide caption

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One of the paradoxes of space exit is that although space is cold, there is no atmosphere around the spacesuit, so heat tends to build up inside. When Cernan tried to move, he eventually overcame it.

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"He started to sweat a lot, and the moisture in the spacesuit started to fog up the visor," Margolis says. His companions interrupted Eva and brought him home, as visibility had deteriorated significantly.

Margolis said that when Thurman returned to Earth, he found that he had lost 13 kilograms during the flight. "We believe that most of this weight was water because he sweated so much during this spacewalk," she said.

Space exits have become more common, but they still pose risks, according to Jonathan Clark, a physician at Baylor College of Medicine who has advised NASA and SpaceX on spacesuits. He estimates that about one in five exits into space contain some kind of problem.

"Sometimes you can adapt, but a lot of times you have to stop EVE and go back," he says.

In the case of astronaut Luke Parmitano, he was forced to abort his exit into space when his helmet started filling with water. He couldn't see, so he had to clear his way to the lock room from memory. Eventually, astronaut Chris Cassidy came back and helped him close the hatch.

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"I don't take credit for staying calm," says Parmitano, a colonel and test pilot in the Italian Air Force.

New challenges

Clark points out that the Polaris Dawn crew was less experienced; of the four-person crew, only Isekman had actually been in space.

And "none of them had ever exited into space before. This was a first for all of them."

The crew is dressed in Space X's new space suit, in a sense, a suit worn by a previous generation astronaut. Space uniforms receive air from unvilled on the galaxy ship, and the space clothing itself is inactivated by the air from the ambition. This basically eliminates the possibility of water leakage like Palmitano, but overheating like a gemini flight can cause frostbite or astronaut visor cloudy. Is.

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In addition, the dragon capsule must be operated without interruption in a vacuum state. Without air circulation, it will be difficult for the capsule to keep it fresh.

"Of course, there are difficulties," says Clark.

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However, newcomers have all the opportunities to create difficult situations in space. Cyan Proctor was a pilot of Isaac Man Mission 1, which was scheduled to enter in 2021. Six months before the launch, she had never skipped a rocket.

"I became a pilot of a galactic ship from a Ph. D. in Earth Science," she says.

The professional says that Space X was prepared. Furthermore, there is no doubt that Sarah Gilly's helped to prepare for the flight. The last crew, Scott Potite, was a mission manager at the time of launch.

It took only six months to prepare for a short professional, but it took more than two years to prepare for the latter task, and it was possible for a long time.

According to Proctor's book, if someone can achieve the first paid escape to a sincere space, there is only this command.

"The crew is really wonderful." They are very skilled. " < SPAN> The crew is dressed in Space X's new space suit, in a sense, a suit worn by a previous generation astronaut. Space uniforms receive air from unvilled on the galaxy ship, and the space clothing itself is inactivated by the air from the ambition. This basically eliminates the possibility of water leakage like Palmitano, but overheating like a gemini flight can cause frostbite or astronaut visor cloudy. Is.