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US Billionaire Becomes First Non-Professional Astronaut to Perform Spacewalk

13.09.2024
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https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c86l6j2w865o

On September 12, American billionaire Jared Isaacman became the first non-professional astronaut in history to go into space. The 41-year-old billionaire paid for the Polaris Dawn expedition on SpaceX's Crew Dragon for himself and three other crew members.

Isaacman's net worth is estimated at $1.9 billion. He owns the electronic payments company Shift4 Payments, which he founded in 1999 at the age of 16.

After going into space on Thursday, the billionaire said the following: "We still have a lot to do back home, but from here, Earth looks like a perfect world." Sarah Gillies, a lead engineer at SpaceX, also went into space with him.

Isaacman has been interested in aviation since his youth. In 2004, he began training as a pilot and later set a world record for the fastest round-the-world flight in a light jet.

Time magazine estimates that Jared Isaacman paid another billionaire, Elon Musk's SpaceX, $200 million that time.

The Polaris Dawn mission is scheduled to return to Earth on Saturday, September 14.

 

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