A tech billionaire carried out the primary personal spacewalk lots of of miles above Earth on Thursday, a high-risk endeavor reserved for skilled astronauts — till now.

New Jersey-born entrepreneur Jared Isaacman teamed up with SpaceX to check the corporate’s new spacesuits on his chartered flight. The daring spacewalk additionally noticed SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis going out as soon as Isaacman was safely again inside.

So who’s Isaacman, and the way’d he pull that off?

Isaacman, 41, CEO and founding father of the Shift4 credit score card-processing firm, has declined to reveal how a lot he invested within the flight. It was the primary of three flights in a program he’s dubbed Polaris; this one was referred to as Polaris Daybreak. For SpaceX’s inaugural personal flight in 2021, he took up contest winners and a most cancers survivor.

Till Thursday, solely 263 folks had carried out a spacewalk, representing 12 international locations. The Soviet Union’s Alexei Leonov kicked it off in 1965, adopted a couple of months later by NASA’s Ed White.

Isaacman began taking flying classes in 2004 and set a world document for circumnavigating the globe 5 years later.

He earned a bachelor’s diploma in skilled aeronautics from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical College in 2011 and is a married dad to 2 daughters.

In keeping with Forbes, Isaacman began Shift4 within the basement of his dad and mom’ New Jersey residence in 1999. He was 16 years outdated on the time. Shift4 handles funds for a 3rd of America’s eating places and accommodations.

Isaacman took it public in June 2020 and owns 38% of the inventory, based on Forbes.

In 2011, he began Draken Worldwide, a protection agency that boasts the globe’s largest personal army plane fleet and trains Air Pressure pilots. He later bought a majority stake for a nine-figure sum, Forbes experiences.

Isaacman is price an estimated $1.9 billion.