A New Hampshire resident was part of the SpaceX Polaris Dawn crew that completed the first all-civilian spacewalk on Thursday.
Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Scott “Kidd” Poteet, who lives in Stratham, New Hampshire, is part of a four-person civilian crew on SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission that completed the first private spacewalk Thursday morning.
Poteet and the three other crew members, including billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, who helped fund the mission, and SpaceX engineers Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, lifted off on Tuesday for a five-day journey into space.
Isaacman and Gillis completed a spacewalk Thursday morning, becoming the first civilians to do so.
Here’s what you need to know about Poteet and the mission.
Why is the SpaceX Polaris Dawn historic?
The SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission made history early Thursday morning when two people — billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman and SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis — became the first civilians to complete a spacewalk.
Other crew members, including Scott Poteet, a retired Air Force pilot from New Hampshire, and Anna Menon, a SpaceX engineer, were also exposed to space conditions despite remaining in the team’s capsule, which had no airlock.
They made history, because until now only government astronauts had made a spacewalk.
The crew traveled more than 800 miles into space on Tuesday, the highest point in space that humans have been in more than 50 years. The journey also made Gillis and Menon the farthest female astronauts.
The mission, funded by Isaacman and SpaceX, was first announced in 2021 and is expected to last five days in total. It is the first of three missions under the Polaris program, which is being used to test technology to eventually send a crewed voyage to Mars.
What is a spacewalk?
A spacewalk is when an astronaut steps out of a vehicle into space. They wear spacesuits for oxygen and carry tethers to hold them to their spacecraft.
“We all have a lot of work to do back home, but from here Earth looks perfect,” Isaacman said via the livestream as he stepped out of the SpaceX vehicle.
Who is Scott Poteet?
Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Scott “Kidd” Poteet is one of four crew members on SpaceX’s historic Polaris Dawn mission.
Poteet grew up in Durham and graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a bachelor’s degree in outdoor education. He retired from the Air Force after a 20-year pilot career and lives in Stratham with his wife and two children.
“On a personal level, flying fighter jets for 20 years in the Air Force, combat experience, operational test experience, conducting many red flag exercises and a fighter weapons school, I can tell you without a doubt (that) this is some of the most challenging training I’ve ever experienced,” Poteet told Foster’s Daily Democrat last month. “I couldn’t imagine a more qualified crew than these three individuals leading the charge to prepare for this mission.”
This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: NH local Scott Poteet part of historic SpaceX Polaris Dawn spacewalk
