Space is going private. Three years ago entrepreneur Jared Isaacman conducted the first space mission without a professional astronaut on board. This time, the bn’aire has his sights set on launching the first commercial spacewalk tour, named Polaris Dawn, into orbit. The voyage, initially planned to launch today but postponed due to unsuitable weather conditions, will be taking three privately trained astronauts into space.

This could be a milestone for the commercial space sector, but private missions are no strangers to space. NASA has been known to look to private companies like SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin for space shuttle manufacturing and other space endeavors — as evidenced by SpaceX undertaking the rescue of two stranded astronauts on behalf of NASA. Now that space is no longer monopolized by the US government agency, private companies have the technology, resources, and clearance to revolutionize space travel.

But it’s not all fun and games. The Polaris Dawn crew has missions of its own, the first of which is to test the SpaceX spacesuit. If proven safe, the crew may attempt to solve a USD 10+ mn problem for NASA by raising the altitude of the Hubble Space Telescope. The telescope, launched in 1990, has been inching closer to Earth, putting it at risk of being pulled in by the planet’s gravitational pull and burning up in the atmosphere.

You’re not alone in thinking that this would make for a compelling disaster film. Some NASA employees fear that the agency is giving up more and more of its stronghold over space for little in return. Without governmental oversight, the missions are becoming more dangerous and less reliable, threatening the reputation of NASA for enabling them. The Polaris Dawn crew have no sanctioned training, meaning that damage to the telescope is a not-too-distant probability, as is the endangerment of the crew’s lives.

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