Extravehicular activity (EVA) is any activity done by an astronaut in outer space outside a spacecraft. In the absence of a breathable Earthlike atmosphere, the astronaut is completely reliant on a space suit for environmental support. EVA includes spacewalks and lunar or planetary surface exploration. In a stand-up EVA (SEVA), an astronaut stands through an open hatch but does not fully leave the spacecraft. EVAs have been conducted by the Soviet Union/Russia, the United States, Canada, the European Space Agency and China.
Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism. Tourists are motivated by the possibility of viewing Earth from space, feeling weightlessness, experiencing extremely high speed and something unusual, and contributing to science.
Colonel Gary Eugene Payton, USAF, is an American astronaut and USAF Manned Spaceflight Engineer. Payton flew on the STS-51-C mission aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery in January 1985. He later served as Deputy Undersecretary of the Air Force under the Bush and Obama Administrations.
Jared Taylor 'Rook' Isaacman is an American entrepreneur, pilot, philanthropist, and commercial astronaut. He is the founder of Draken International, a private air force provider, and the founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments, a payment processor. As of September 2024, his estimated net worth is US$1.9 billion.
The following is a timeline of important events in the history of private spaceflight, including important technical as well as legislative and political advances. Though the industry has its origins in the early 1960s, soon after the beginning of the Space Age, private companies did not begin conducting launches into space until the 1980s, and it was not until the 21st century that multiple companies began privately developing and operating launch vehicles and spacecraft in earnest.
Sian Hayley "Leo" Proctor is an American commercial astronaut, geology professor, artist, author, and science communicator. She became the first female commercial spaceship pilot on the all-civilian Inspiration4 orbital spaceflight, 15 September 2021. As pilot of the Inspiration4's SpaceX Crew Dragon space capsule, Proctor became the first African-American woman to pilot a spacecraft. She was also the education outreach officer for the first Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) Mission. In 2024, Proctor was selected to be a U.S. Science Envoy for the United States Department of State.
Crew Dragon Resilience is the second operational Crew Dragon reusable spacecraft manufactured and operated by SpaceX. It first launched on 16 November 2020 to the International Space Station (ISS) on the SpaceX Crew-1 mission, the first operational flight of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. It was subsequently used for Inspiration4 in 2021, the first private spaceflight mission with an all-civilian crew, and the Polaris Dawn mission in September 2024.
Inspiration4 was a 2021 human spaceflight operated by SpaceX on behalf of Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman. The mission launched the Crew Dragon Resilience on 16 September 2021 at 00:02:56 UTC from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A atop a Falcon 9 launch vehicle. It placed the Dragon capsule into low Earth orbit with mission termination on 18 September 2021 at 23:06:49 UTC when Resilience splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean.
Hayley Arceneaux is an American physician assistant and commercial astronaut. She joined billionaire Jared Isaacman on SpaceX's first private spaceflight Inspiration4, which launched on September 16, 2021, 00:02:56 UTC, and successfully water-landed local-time on Saturday, September 18. Arceneaux became the first human in space with a prosthetic leg bone after surviving bone cancer. At age 29, Arceneaux was the youngest American to travel to space, surpassed a few months later by 23-year-old Cameron Bess aboard Blue Origin NS-19.. Later, on Blue Origin NS-26 Karsen Kitchen, 21, was one of six crew members which launched around 9 a.m. E.T. on August 29th, 2024. "" As Kitchen's flight was suborbital, Arceneaux is the youngest American to have orbited the Earth.
Christopher Sembroski is an American data engineer, Air Force veteran, and commercial astronaut. He flew to orbit on Inspiration4, a private spaceflight funded by billionaire Jared Isaacman.
Axiom Mission 2 was a private crewed spaceflight operated by Axiom Space. Ax-2 was launched on 21 May 2023 on a SpaceX Falcon 9, successfully docking with the International Space Station (ISS) on 22 May. After eight days docked to the ISS, the Dragon crew capsule Freedom undocked and returned to Earth twelve hours later.
An amateur astronaut is an untrained person participating in a spaceflight. The term is widely used by SpaceX and others, and by widespread media, especially after the launch of Inspiration4, crewed by 4 untrained humans, on a 3-day flight around the Earth.
Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space is a 2021 American five-part docuseries jointly produced by Netflix and Time Studios to chronicle, in near real-time, the successful SpaceX Inspiration4 orbital mission which occurred in September 2021.
Anil Menon is a lieutenant colonel in the United States Air Force, emergency medicine physician and NASA astronaut.
Polaris Dawn was a private crewed spaceflight operated by SpaceX on behalf of Shift4 CEO Jared Isaacman, the first of three planned missions in the Polaris program. Launched 10 September 2024 as the 14th crewed orbital flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft, Isaacman and his crew of three — Scott Poteet, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon — flew in an elliptic orbit that took them 1,400 kilometers (870 mi) away from Earth, the farthest anyone has been since NASA's Apollo program. They passed through parts of the Van Allen radiation belt to study the health effects of space radiation and spaceflight on the human body. Later in the mission, the crew performed the first commercial spacewalk.
Anna Menon is an American engineer employed by SpaceX as lead space operations and a mission director. She flew on Polaris Dawn, a private human spaceflight mission operated by SpaceX on behalf of Jared Isaacman. During the September 2024 mission, she served as the onboard medical officer and, along with Sarah Gillis, set the record for women traveling farthest from Earth.
The Polaris program is a private spaceflight program organized by entrepreneur Jared Isaacman. Building on his experience as commander of the Inspiration4 mission—the first all-civilian spaceflight—Isaacman contracted with SpaceX to establish Polaris. The program involves two missions using SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft and is planned to culminate in the first crewed launch on Starship.
Sarah Levin Gillis is an American engineer employed by SpaceX as the senior space operations engineer. She flew to space in September 2024 on Polaris Dawn, a private human spaceflight mission, operated by SpaceX on behalf of Jared Isaacman. During the mission, she completed the first commercial spacewalk with Isaacman, becoming the youngest person to date to participate in a spacewalk, and, along with Anna Menon, set a new record for women traveling farthest from Earth.
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