Jared Isaacman made history as the first man to take a private spacewalk.
His achievement follows in the elusive footsteps of nearly 260 other intrepid astronauts and cosmonauts who have bravely stepped into the vacuum of space.
Here are some of the most beautiful and terrifying moments from the history of spacewalks.
Billionaire Jared Isaacman made history on the mission of Spike-X's Dawn of Polaris (Polaris Dawn) by going on the first privately financed spacewalk.
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The twelve minutes he spent outside SpaceX's Dragon capsule will be considered a key milestone in commercial space travel.
Wearing specially adapted spacesuits, Isaacman and SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis took turns floating outside the spacecraft at an orbital altitude of about 700 kilometers.
Both performed mobility tests of the suits they were wearing, equipped with screens in the helmet and cameras on top of the helmet.
When Isaacman first stepped through the opening of the Dragon capsule, his first impressions after seeing it were: "From here, Earth really does look like a perfect planet."
Both his and Sara Gilis's spacewalk went smoothly, but they were not without risks.
Unlike other modern spacecraft, Dragon does not have a decompression chamber, so the entire capsule had to be depressurized before the pair could exit.
This meant that the rest of the crew inside were also exposed to the almost complete vacuum of space, so they all had to wear new spacesuits as well.
Now that it has been successfully completed, this spacewalk joins a long list of legendary and memorable moments when astronauts have bravely stepped out of spaceships with little more than a few layers of fabric between them and the endless expanse of space.
From getting stuck in a decompression chamber to near-fatally drowning in your own spacesuit, there's been no shortage of drama throughout the long history of "extravehicular activity" (EVA), as spacewalks are officially called.
Here are some of the most significant that happened after Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov became the first man to "walk" in space almost 60 years ago.
The first spacewalk
At the height of the Space Race during the Cold War, the Soviet Union had already beaten the United States in a number of key space milestones.
The USSR sent the first satellite into orbit with Sputnik 1, the first mammal into orbit, and then, in 1961, the first human.
On March 1965, XNUMX, the USSR achieved another space record - it sent the first man outside a spacecraft to "walk" in space.
Exiting Voshkod 2 through an inflatable decompression chamber activated outside the spacecraft's hatch, cosmonaut Alexei Leonov spent 12 minutes outside, connected by an umbilical cord to the capsule.
But the first "out-of-vehicle activity" of all time didn't go as planned.
The spacesuit worn by Leonov became rigid under the pressure of the vacuum in space, making it difficult for him to move and take pictures.
The tether connecting him to the Voshkod 2 also twisted, causing him to start tumbling, making it very difficult for him to return to the decompression chamber.
And even when he managed to do that, he got stuck at the entrance and couldn't close the lid behind him.
To get in, Leonov had to open the valves on his space suit to relieve the pressure and be able to move enough to crawl inside and close the hatch.
The whole escapade was so exhausting that when his spacesuit was examined on Earth, it contained several liters of his sweat.
America's first spacewalk
It would be more than two months before the first American would step out of the relative safety of a spacecraft into the void of space.
On June 1965, 4, Ed White opened the hatch of the Gemini XNUMX spacecraft as it entered its third orbit around the Earth.
Using a hand-held oxygen jet gun, he managed to eject himself from the capsule as the spacecraft passed by Hawaii.
He spent 23 minutes outside, at the very end of an eight-meter long rope.
At first he brought himself to the spacecraft and away from it three times, using the jet gun, but the gun ran out after three minutes, so White was forced to move around pulling the rope.
White tragically died less than two years later with two other astronauts in a fire that engulfed the Apollo 1 spacecraft during testing on the launch pad.
The first space selfie
Edwin "Baz" Aldrin is perhaps better known for another walk he took as the second man ever to set foot on another world during the Apollo 11 mission to the moon.
But he is also responsible for probably the first "selfie" created while walking in space.
During the four-day mission of Dzeminaj XII in November 1966, he made several spacewalks to photograph the stars, try out equipment and conduct experiments.
Before launch, Aldrin became the first astronaut to use neutral mobility training in the pool to prepare for these spacewalks.
That preparation, he later claimed, prepared him to overcome many of the maneuvering problems that astronauts encountered during previous spacewalks.
He spent a total of five hours and 48 minutes on the spacewalk, which was a record at the time.
Just before his first spacewalk on the second day of the mission, Aldrin placed a camera on the edge of a hatch in the Gemini spacecraft and pointed it at himself.
The resulting "selfie" shows his eyes and forehead illuminated inside the helmet, with the blue curvature of the Earth behind his shoulder.
Unfettered and all alone
Astronauts had been bravely stepping out of spacecraft for nearly 20 years before Bruce McCandless II took the pioneering spacewalk in 1984.
In the past, astronauts and cosmonauts remained tethered to their spacecraft by ropes to keep them from flying off into the endless expanse of space.
The difference with McCandles was that he did it unconnected.
Anyone who has seen the 2013 film Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock, will understand how terrifying this idea is.
Fortunately for McCandles, he was carrying a new nitrogen-powered device on his back that could be operated with joysticks.
The Manned Management Unit (MMU) had 24 nitrogen thrusters that allowed it to remain stable and move around in space.
During space shuttle mission STS-41-B on February 7, 1984, McCandless flew 91 meters from the shuttle while testing the MMU for the first time.
In the image above, he is seen at maximum distance from the space shuttle Challenger, a lone figure in the blackness of space and the curvature of the Earth behind him.
"It may have been one small step for Neil, but it sure was one hell of a big step for me," McCandless said at the time, echoing Neil Armstrong's words as he took his first steps on the moon in 1969.
Space rescue with a "sting"
After McCandless' success with the MMU, NASA subsequently released the backpack.
In November 1984, astronauts Dale Gardner and Joseph Allen were first sent aboard the space shuttle Discovery on a mission to retrieve a pair of failed satellites from orbit.
It is the first time that a rescue mission has been carried out in space.
With the MMU on his back, Allen left the relative safety of the shuttle's remote control stick to bridge the 11-meter gap to the Palapa B-2 communications satellite.
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This was sent together with the Vestar VI communications satellite in an earlier shuttle mission that same year, but neither managed to reach a proper orbit.
Allen and Gardner's job was to "stab" the slow-rotating satellites through a thruster with a lander they had brought with them.
Allen was to go first, inserting a specially made Apogee motor capture device into the engine of the Palapa B-2 satellite.
He then used the MMU's jet engines to slow the satellite's rotation.
Mission Specialist Anna Fisher was then supposed to help guide the broken satellite into Discovery's cargo bay.
Next were Gardner and Vestar VI, which was to undergo the same procedure.
Once the two "stabbed" satellites were safely stowed away in the space shuttle's cargo hold, Garnder paused for a moment to pose for a humorous photo with a "for sale" sign.
It was a reference to the nature of the mission which practically salvaged the waste.
Both satellites were eventually resold by insurance companies and were relaunched in April 1990.
The tallest female mechanic in the world
In the three years since it was launched into orbit in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has become something of a laughing stock.
Despite costing more than a billion and a half dollars (about a billion dollars at the time), it returned blurry images to Earth due to a tiny flaw in its main mirror.
In December 1993, a team of astronauts on space shuttle mission STS-61 was sent to perform emergency repairs on the telescope.
It was one of the most demanding and complex missions ever carried out.
During five consecutive spacewalks, two teams of astronauts spent a total of 35 hours and 28 minutes making the first mechanical repairs to the space telescope in orbit.
Space Shuttle Endeavor's remote control arm was used to position the 13-meter-long Hubble above the shuttle's cargo bay.
This allowed the astronauts to carry out vital repairs and updates to the hardware, which included solar panels, gyroscopes and fuse plugs.
Mission Specialist Katherine Thornton set the record for the longest time spent on a spacewalk during a repair mission, accumulating a total of 21 hours and 10 minutes outside the spacecraft.
Mission Specialist Tom Akers also set a record for "extra-spacecraft activity," with a 29-hour, 39-minute spacewalk.
Friendship walk
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991 and the end of the Cold War, the years that followed saw increasing cooperation in space between Russia and the US.
From 1994 to 1998, the US space shuttle visited the Russian space station Mir ten times.
During that time, seven American astronauts lived and worked on Mir, accumulating nearly 1.000 days in orbit side by side with their fellow cosmonauts.
The fourth American who lived on Mir was medical doctor and astronaut Jerry Linenger in 1997.
His stay on Mir was stressful.
He and five other crew members on the station faced what was probably the most serious fire ever to break out in space after the oxygen generation system ignited.
Although it lasted only a few minutes, the fire filled the space station with smoke and prevented access to one of the two Soyuz escape vehicles.
Later, the Russian supply ship Progress M-34 also collided with the space station during a docking attempt, puncturing Mir's hull and causing the first decompression in an orbiting spacecraft.
They also experienced the failure of several vital pieces of equipment during the mission.
But before all this drama, Linenger was the first American to go on a spacewalk in a Russian space suit.
On a five-hour walk on April 29, 1997, Linenger joined Mira-23 commander Vassily Tsibliyev as they installed scientific instruments on the outer part of the space station.
Construction of a new space station
In 1998, work began on a contender for possibly the most expensive structure ever built by humans - the International Space Station.
Astronauts aboard the Enedvor space shuttle participated in a 12-day mission to connect the first two modules of what will eventually allow humans to stay in space permanently.
The International Space Station in 2024 can boast of 16 modules and is the same length as a football field.
But in 1998, astronauts James Newman and Jerry Ross had to perform three long spacewalks while using the shuttle's long robotic arm to grab the Zaria control module and attach it to the 12,8-ton Juniti module.
This process, however, was not without difficulties.
As the two astronauts spliced cables and fences, freed jammed antennas and removed retaining pins, they lost several construction items that drifted off into space to join the growing amount of "space debris" that now poses a threat to satellites and spacecraft.
By December 13, 1998, however, their work was done and Endeavor detached itself from the growing International Space Station, leaving it free to float in space.
Two years later, the International Space Station became permanently inhabited, enabling the permanent presence of humans in orbit ever since.
Record space walk
An eight-hour day seems like a long time even when your feet are firmly on the ground.
So how must American astronaut Susan Helms have felt after she was on the longest spacewalk in history in March 2001, spending eight hours and 56 minutes outside the International Space Station.
She and fellow astronaut James Voss were tasked with installing hardware on the outside of the MSS laboratory module when they set out on their epic walk.
Their record remains unbroken to this day.
Under the space shuttle
Space Shuttle Discovery's STS-114 flight in July 2005 was the first space shuttle launch since the tragic loss of Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003, when all seven crew members died in atmospheric re-entry disintegration.
NASA has spent nearly three years trying to improve the safety of the shuttle, focusing in particular on the spacecraft's shielding plates, which were intended to protect it from the extreme temperatures of re-entry.
The launch of the Discovery was tense.
The first attempt was abandoned after the fuel sensor broke down during the countdown.
When it finally separated from the launch pad, footage showed a chunk of foam separating from the outer fuel tank as well as smaller pieces of tiles, raising concerns that the shuttle's heat shield had been damaged.
Upon arrival at the International Space Station, astronaut Steven Robinson was sent outside to assess the situation, making his way inch by inch along the gray heat shield tiles.
Using his fingers, he pulled out two bulging gap fillers between the two heat shield tiles.
It was the first repair of the spacecraft while it was in orbit before it was due to return to Earth.
This work paid off - the shuttle landed safely at Edwards Air Force Base in California on August 9, 2005.
Almost drowned in space
It was supposed to be a routine activity outside the craft.
Six hours outside the International Space Station working to prepare the cables for the arrival of the new Russian research module.
But while Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano was working on that task, he noticed something that would mark the beginning of one of the most serious mishaps in spacewalk history - water began to collect in the back of his helmet.
In the 44th minute of his exit from the aircraft on July 16, 2013, Parmitano calmly reported that he "felt a lot of water on the back of his head."
Unable to discover its source, he continued to work on a routine task on the cable.
In case it came from the drink bag in his suit, he drank all the liquid.
But the water continued to settle, starting to seep into his communications cap.
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A little over an hour into the spacewalk, Mission Control decided to abort the spacewalk, ordering Parmitan and fellow spacewalker astronaut Chris Cassidy to return to the decompression chamber.
But as Parmitano moved, so did the water, obscuring his vision and forcing him to ask Cassidy for help finding his way to the decompression chamber.
Cassidy, bound to another part of the space station, had to return by another route.
In the near-zero-gravity environment of orbit, the water bubble on the back of Parmitan's neck shifted as he turned toward the decompression chamber.
Now it covered his eyes, ears and nose.
With the water cutting off his communication systems and blocking his ears, he had trouble alerting Cassidy and Mission Control to the dire situation he found himself in.
"On a subconscious level I was scared," he later told the BBC's World Service.
"We are trained to control that fear or to use it to our advantage and redirect it somewhere else.
Instead of focusing on the problem - which was that I was isolated, I couldn't see, I couldn't hear, I couldn't be heard and I could drown with every next breath of air - I started thinking about solutions."
Blurred vision and suddenly in total darkness as the space station plunged into the darkness beyond Earth, Parmitano felt his way back to the decompression chamber with the aid of his safety rope.
Once inside the decompression chamber, Parmitano faced an excruciating five-minute wait to return to Cassidy.
It took another 10 minutes to lock the lid and another 13 minutes before the chamber was completely depressurized and Parmitano's helmet could be removed.
It was discovered that an estimated 1,5 liters of water filled his helmet while he was in it.
"For a few minutes, or maybe more than a few minutes, I experienced what it's like to be a goldfish in an aquarium from a goldfish's point of view," Parmitano later said, in a surprisingly humorous recollection of the incident.
An investigation would later find a blockage in Parmitan's fan pump separator, which caused water to spill from the cooling loop into the ventilation loop and then into the helmet.
Engineers will later add absorption pads and a snorkel to the spacesuit helmets to help the astronauts if water leaks.
And as NASA tackles the next phase of space exploration with the Artemis program, the lessons learned by Parmitano and the brave spacewalkers before and after him will help them make better decisions.
To date, only about 260 people have had the privilege of "walking" in space - barely enough to fill all the seats of a London Underground carriage.
As that list grows, so will the adventures.
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