Newswise — SpaceX is set to launch Polaris Dawn on Tuesday, August 27 at 3:37 am. Polaris Dawn will see the first civilian commercial spacewalk in history and the highest-altitude human spaceflight since Apollo 17 in 1972.
University of Chicago instructor Jordan Bimm, a space historian and author of the book Anticipating the Astronaut, can discuss the significance and purpose of the Polaris Dawn mission, including:
- The achievement of several historic firsts, including the highest-ever altitude spaceflight by a woman (shared by the two SpaceX employees on the four-person crew: Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis)
- The goal of Jared Isaacman, commander of this mission, to raise the status of commercial spaceflight from fun adventure tourism to serious science and daring exploration.
- How the very high-altitude orbit plus spacewalk could bolster Isaacman’s pitch to NASA to let him conduct a commercial mission to the Hubble Space Telescope to extend its operational life.
Jordan Bimm is assistant instructional professor of science communication and public discourse in the Parrhesia Program for Public Discourse at the University of Chicago. A historian of science, technology, and medicine focused on the human and biological aspects of space exploration, he holds a Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Fellowship at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. His research includes the forgotten military origins of the search for potential extraterrestrial life and the surprising history of pre-NASA space medicine test subjects, including push-button soldiers and high-altitude Indigenous people.
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