Richard Arnold: US Correspondent on the first civilian spacewalk from the SpaceX capsule

For the first time ever, civilians have stepped out into space. 

Billionaire Jared Isaacman and company crew trainer Sarah Gillis have achieved the first commercial spacewalk outside their SpaceX capsule while in orbit. 

The pair were testing new spacesuits, designed to be low-cost and easy-to-manufacture for future missions flying to the Moon or Mars. 

US Correspondent Richard Arnold told Mike Hosking that the mission is likely to have tallied into the hundreds of millions of dollars. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Stateside, Richard il A, very good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
What do you, Mike?

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Very pretty pictures, were they? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (00:05):
But before that, sixty seven million debate watches in this country,
So that's approaching Seinfeld finale numbers back in the day.
Because we don't know who were in that number of
how many cats and dogs were watching.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
That is true.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
However, Yes, space history made today with the first all
civilian spacewalk. This was funded by a tech billionaire, Jared Isaacman,
who has declined to say but this space tourism cost,
but the mission on an Elon Musk SpaceX capsule is
likely to have talied into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Isaacman went up as part of a four person Polaris mission.

(00:39):
The other three on board were a retired Air Force
colonel and two women, including a SpaceX engineer, Sarah Gillis,
who also went out on the spacewalk. She left the
spacecraft for about seven minutes. Isaacman was out there for ten.
The space pod does not have a pressurized airlocks, so
all four had to wear their trimm down new spacesuits
and all were exposed to vacuum conditions and the hatch

(01:02):
is open. Before he left, Isaacman, who went into space
once before, said of his latest space jort, and we're
doing things that haven't been done in you know, half
a century, and the idea hopefully as we learn a
lot from it. Well, it has been a while since
the last man flight to this orbital altitude that was
fourteen hundred kilometers up from the Earth. Last time humans

(01:24):
were up this high was the last Apollo mission mission
in nineteen seventy two. We're talking three times higher than
the International Space Station. The Dragon capsule now has been repressurized,
leaked tests have been done before they resumed normal operations.
But when they went back into the capsule, the returning
SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis said she could see bulges on

(01:44):
the hat seals. Wouldn't worry about that, said her colleagues
on the ground, Just you know, push them back in there. Meantime,
if others out there have several hundred million dollars for
a seven minute spacewalk, just messages you know at elon.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Musk exactly, so kel how about a the fires.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Oh gosh, the mountain areas around Los Angeles are being
hit by the worst bushfires we've had in years and years.
Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated, including a
number of my friends. The first fire that erupted is
only eighteen percent contained at the minute. They have thirty
one hundred firefighters attacking on that line, twenty one helicopters
dropping water and fire retardant on the flames there. So far,

(02:21):
it is proving extremely difficult to make much progress because
the weather has been very, very hot and windy. Dozens
of homes have been lost, thirteen people injured, says one evacuee.
Of the circumstances there.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
We packed up the kids that got out of there.
Not a couple hours later we heard our house. It's
just leveled. Horrible.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
These are areas where I go hiking as well. It
is just so distressing. The groundcover because can grow back
in maybe two or three years, the trees maybe twenty years,
maybe never for some species, says one man. I'm angry,
I'm set, yeah, be too, really distraught over this. The
biggest fire was Arson. It was begun they say by
a thirty four year old man, justin Holstenberg. We don't

(03:01):
know yet how they track down this suspect. The man
is being held on eighty thousand dollars bail. To my mind,
that is simply not enough.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
You have a good week, Hey, Mike. Richard Arnold's sight Side.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
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