ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Early this morning, a rocket from the commercial company SpaceX lifted off from Florida.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Four, three, two, one.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: Three, two, one.
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SHAPIRO: On board were four private astronauts. On Thursday, they're scheduled to conduct the first commercial spacewalk. NPR's Geoff Brumfiel is here to tell us more about it. Hey, Geoff.
GEOFF BRUMFIEL, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Who's on this rocket ship?
BRUMFIEL: Well, Jared Isaacman is the mission commander and the money. He's a wealthy internet entrepreneur who's paid an undisclosed bag of cash to go up on this flight. Scott Poteet is his pilot. He's a former Air Force officer who now works for Isaacman. And there are two SpaceX engineers, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon.
SHAPIRO: This is the first commercial spacewalk. What does that actually mean?
BRUMFIEL: So up until now, the only people who have ever left the confines of their spacecraft had been professional astronauts. And they do spacewalks for work. For example, you know, on the International Space Station, if they need to go out and fix the solar panels or do something on the exterior of the spacecraft, they put on their suits, and they go out the airlock, and they do their jobs.
This will be the first time that civilians have left a spacecraft to float around in space, and they'll be doing it in these new SpaceX spacesuits that have never been tested before. SpaceX was actually showing them off early this morning as the astronauts walked out to the pad.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Wow. They just look so cool; don't they?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Laughter).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: They really do.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: They came out with their visors down, which I thought was really awesome.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: And now they're up.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: And now they got their visors up.
BRUMFIEL: I mean, I got to say, it's hard to look cool in a spacesuit, honestly. They're kind of puffy and white. But they do have these sort of sleek, futuristic-looking helmets with gold visors, you know? They're a little bit of an update on what you might be used to seeing.
Now, basically, the way this is all going to work is that all four of these astronauts are going to suit up. They're going to let all the air out of their spacecraft. And then Isaacman and Gillis are going to float up, open the hatch and each spend about 10 to 15 minutes floating outside the capsule, looking down at the Earth.
SHAPIRO: Sorry, Geoff. I'm hung up on the phrase suits that have never been tested before. Is that as risky as it sounds?
BRUMFIEL: Yeah, you should be hung up on that phrase, Ari, because this is one of the hardest things to do in space. I spoke to Jonathan Clark. He's a physician at Baylor College of Medicine, who's consulted in the past with both NASA and SpaceX on spacesuits. Here's what he said.
JONATHAN CLARK: A spacesuit is a single-person spacecraft. So it has to have all the things that a spacecraft has, but it's super miniaturized.
BRUMFIEL: So that's all got to go well. And then on top of that, you might think you're floating around in space, but the truth is, these suits in the vacuum of space sort of blow up, and astronauts have to fight them. You know, they're constantly trying to fight them to move. So, you know, if NASA was doing this, they would have an experienced astronaut paired with a rookie. But in this case, Clark says...
CLARK: None of the crew has done an actual spacewalk before. It's going to be a first for everybody.
SHAPIRO: At the risk of editorializing, this sounds like a nightmare. Why is it happening?
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BRUMFIEL: Well, a couple of reasons. First of all, this is important for SpaceX. They want to carry astronauts to the moon and Mars, and to do that, they need spacesuits. So they're hoping this flight will help them pave the way for sort of mass production spacesuits that can be used in their future flights. You know, and for Isaacman, this is no nightmare. This is a dream. You know, he wants to be an astronaut. He's paying for the privilege, and he's going to have absolutely the best view you can imagine.
SHAPIRO: I sincerely hope he enjoys that view. NPR's Geoff Brumfiel. Thank you very much.
BRUMFIEL: Thank you, Ari.
(SOUNDBITE OF T C LONG'S "PEACEFUL SCENE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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