The Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union may have ended in the 1970s, but today a new Space Race is brewing.
This new race isn’t between hostile nations. Hell, it doesn’t even involve astronauts. Instead, a handful of billionaire-funded aerospace technology companies are seemingly in a race to see who can send civilians on the most insane outer space journey.
Blasting into the lead is Elon Musk‘s SpaceX with its upcoming Polaris Dawn mission, which will take four civilians — led by mission organizer and Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman — further into space than any human since NASA’s Apollo program.
The Polaris Dawn Mission
Over five days onboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, the amateur astronauts of Polaris Dawn will travel into the dangerous Van Allen radiation belt to test its effects on their health, take part in the first-ever commercial spacewalk, and attempt to reach the highest Earth orbit of any human ever.
The mission seems incredibly risky, to say the least, and Isaacman and company — retired Air Force pilot Scott Poteet and SpaceX engineers Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon — are going to need to rely on their equipment in order to survive. Part of said equipment will be an outer space chronograph watch created just for the mission, and no, it’s not an Omega Speedmaster.
