space X back at home.
>> We all have a lot of work to
do, but from here, Earth looks like a perfect world . >> And the voice you just heard there is tech entrepreneur Jared
Isaacman as he made history. He
is the first private citizen to
complete a spacewalk. Jared
Isaacman is part of a four
person crew aboard the SpaceX
Crew Dragon vehicle , which left
Earth on Tuesday. The Polaris
Dawn mission is focused on testing SpaceX's new spacesuits.
In total, the spacewalk lasted
20 minutes in what is being
called both risky and a giant leap forward in space
exploration. And for more on
today's historic spacewalk, we
go to Doctor Philip metzger ,
director of the Stephen W
Hawking Center for microgravity Research and professor of planetary science at the University of Central Florida. He also spent 30 years at NASA
working on space flight
technology. Welcome, Doctor Metzger. Great to be with you today. Can you put today's
events into context as it relates to space exploration,
both past and present ?
>> Yeah, this is a really
amazing day. Not only do we have
the most humans in space ever in
history at 19, but it was also
the first time that we had a private spaceflight do a
spacewalk , and it's gone farther from Earth than humans have gone
ever since the Apollo program.
In fact, the two female crew members are the farthest that women have traveled from planet Earth in the history of the
world. So there are a lot of
really cool things happening, I would like to say that NASA had
envisioned a day like this. NASA
started a program called
Commercial Crew and trying to do sustainable space exploration by helping the commercial side of space get started , because if
commercial space can begin to flourish, then it allows NASA to
do more and go farther. And so
the plan is working just like we had hoped it would. >> That is amazing. How does
that make you feel? I mean,
you've been working on this type
of thing for such a long time,
and to see it actually happen. >> Yeah, well, this is really
the most exciting time for me as
a space professional . I grew up
on the Space Coast in Florida.
I've worked at NASA ever since I
was a graduate right out of college, and then working as a
faculty member in planetary science and space technology. So
it's been about 40 years. So far, and by far this is the most exciting time in space. We're going to have the fifth flight
of the Starship, which is going
to eventually be a lunar lander
that will be supposed to be taking off in a in a month or two from now. They're going to
catch the rocket on the
spacecraft using chopsticks as
it attempts to come back and land. It's going to be amazing.
We're going to have the new Glenn rocket from Blue Origin
flying for the first time, there
are just so many things happening. Going back to the moon, Mars exploration, SpaceX wants to build a city on Mars of a million people within a few
decades , we have commercial
space companies getting ready to
put up their own space stations ,
multiple companies buildinglunar landers so it is an
amazing time. >> Yeah, it really is. And also,
though, it's also a little bit
dangerous to do this. Talk to us
quickly about why spacewalks are
considered risky .
>> Yeah. So when you open that door and let all the air out of your spacecraft, you better hopeyou can get it shut again and get the air repressurized because if you don't, you've only got a little bit of air in your suit. And you've got to
come back down and land pretty quickly, when you're exposed out
there in space, if you got a rip
or tear in your spacesuit, you
would lose pressure and it would be almost instantaneous
deathfor the crew, so it is quite a
scary thing, but they've got
these high tech spacesuits that they've been developing. One one
unique thing about these
spacesuits is they are developed
to be mass manufactured, to be
really inexpensive so that they
can build thousands of them because we're expecting to have thousands and then tens of thousands of people going to
space pretty soon. Really incredible stuff.>> We only have about 30s left
or so , but I would love to get
your final thoughts on all of this.>> Yeah, well, this was a great triumphant day for SpaceX. It's a great day for commercial
space. I'm expecting the space
economy to grow to be $1 trillion economy within 5 or 10
years. Well about ten years. I think we're right on schedule
for that .
>> All right, doctor Metzger,
thank you so much for coming on and sharing all this with us.
Really appreciate it. My
pleasure.