Chris Jackson: Auckland University's Spacecraft Missions Director on the first commercial spacewalk

Space milestones are only going to keep on coming, with the first ever commercial space walk mission. 

Billionaire Jared Isaacman and engineer Sarah Gillis have become the first civilians to walk in space.  

The Space X mission also put the total number of people currently in space to 19, tying the record set in 2021. 

Auckland University's Spacecraft Missions Director Chris Jackson told Ryan Bridge the number's only going to increase with SpaceX and NASA's future plans. 

He says they want to populate the Moon, which will put a lot more people in space across a lot of different places. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Polaris Dawn mission successful. A daredevil billionaire turned astronaut has
floated his way into the history books overnight conducting the
world's first privately funded spacewalk. Jared Isaacman, along with SpaceX's
Sarah Gillis, launched into space about a week ago on
the Falcon nine rocket, and last night they conducted a

(00:20):
two hour walk outside their capsule.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Back an hold.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
We all have a lot of works a year.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
For some here, Birksure looks.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Like a perfect world. Chris Jackson is the University of
Auckland head of space operations. Chris, good morning, Good morning Ryan.
How significant is this a privately funded spacewalk.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Yeah, well, there's been quite a lot of i'll say
advances in private space space tourism over the past or
five or ten years, I guess so, and each mission
has been progressing. So getting outside the capsule is actually
quite a big achievement. You know, there's quite a lot
of danger involved with it, and yeah, technically I think

(01:02):
it's quite a big achievement, and you know, it progresses
things for SpaceX and for humanity space. I guess quite
a long way in that SpaceX want to go to
Mars and spacesuits and the space walk type you know,
is all part of that.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yeah, the space suit that they're wearing a lot of
talk about that slim down. It's almost like a wetsuit.
It's that tight on their body. Nowhere near as bulky
is the NASA ones we're used to seeing, right.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yeah, absolutely, And I mean the space suit's quite you know,
quite critical. We obviously think about the I say that
the breathing environment that it obviously provides, but the thermal
environment in space is quite extreme, and regulating temperature in
an environment that has no air around the outside of
the suit is quite critical. So testing that out is

(01:50):
you know, quite a significant step forward. And making it
easier for astronauts to do work outside of capsules with
a smaller suit is something they were't about to do
to do different things to say on the Moon, mining
and things like that that they want about to get to.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
He won't say how much he's spent to get up there.
Do you have any idea what it would cost to
do something like this?

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Well, yeah, I don't know, and I mean he's put
together quite a program, so you know, he's going to
be spending a lot of money. But yeah, it's certainly
you know, tens of hundreds of millions of dollars I
would expect, I mean a satellite launch, just a Falcon
nine launches, you know, in the order of well, let's
say some around about one hundred million new zelland dollars.

(02:35):
So and a manned launches is a lot more than that.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Just finally, there are currently nineteen people in space, which
is apparently a record number. How many is a crowd?
Do you reckon up there?

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Well, I think it's only going to start to increase.
You know that there's a lot more stuff that people
want to do in space. As I say, you know,
Nasura going to the Moon and well soon in a
year or two time that that program's drifting a little,
but you know they want to populate the Moon and
obviously use that as a stepping stone for getting to Mars.
So yeah, this is only going to be the start

(03:09):
of you know, a lot more people in space and
a lot more different places in space as well.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
Fascinating stuff. Chris, Thank you very much for that. Chris Jackson,
University of Auckland, Head of Space Operations. For more from
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