The world’s first commercial space walk, performed by billionaire Jared Isaacman and SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis, tested new technology and was practically flawless

It wasn’t a small step—more a clamber, really—but as billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman climbed partway out of a SpaceX Dragon capsule located nearly 740 kilometers above Earth on early Thursday morning, he made a giant leap into spaceflight history.

That’s because Isaacman is a private citizen who is flying in a commercial spacecraft on a voyage he paid for—not a government-agency astronaut on a taxpayer-funded trip like every space walker before him. Conceived in collaboration with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and launched atop one of the company’s Falcon 9 rockets on Tuesday, Isaacman’s five-day Polaris Dawn mission is the first of three journeys that have been planned to advance the state of the art in human spaceflight. The mission is also raising money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Polaris Dawn had already marked its first historic milestone mere hours after launch when it fired Dragon’s thrusters to raise the spacecraft’s swooping elliptical orbit and reached more than 1,400 kilometers in altitude at its peak. That’s the farthest from Earth any human has ventured since the 1970s, when the last of the Apollo lunar missions left the entire planet in the rearview on the way to the moon. And on Wednesday, after six orbits at that dizzying height—which exposed the crew to higher levels of cosmic radiation and an elevated risk of encounters with hazardous space debris—the Dragon fired its thrusters again to push itself into a lower, safer orbit, where the space walk would take place.

One thing that hits a little different this year is that the main characters have really been the Democrats: Kamala Harris and, before her, Joe Biden.

Source for this? Me, someone who’s been writing on the Internet for a long time. My instinct has been that headlines involving “Harris” (or “Kamala”) or “Biden” will click better with Silver Bulletin readers than those involving “Trump”. We don’t A/B test our headlines, so that might be wrong. But it’s been validated if you look back at the top posts as determined by whatever algorithmic magic Substack uses, which are pretty Kamala- (and Biden-) centric. It was just a truism in 2016 and 2020 that if you wanted to drive traffic on the Internet, you framed the story around Donald Trump. But Google search interest in Trump is down by 2x or 3x relative to these past elections, while the numbers for the Democrats are up:

Debates Can Have Consequences, William Kristol

For all the hoopla that surrounds them, presidential debates usually come and go to little effect. The political world pays attention for a day or two, but the public little notices, nor long remembers, what is said there. One of the candidates may get a little boost and the other take a bit of a hit, then memories fade and the impact dissipates. The campaign caravan moves on.

This is true not just of debates but of many other occurrences in our public life. Things can seem like a very big deal when they happen. Then they fade. That’s the normal course of seemingly dramatic events.

But we don’t live in normal or standard times. For better or worse, in 2024 we seem to be on Lenin Non-Standard Time: “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” In such a time, there are moments whose repercussions reverberate and whose impact grows. The aftershocks are even greater than the original disturbance.

Moore’s Law will crush Eroom’s law to unblock stagnated biotech.

1. Introduction: Why I think Pharma is in crisis and how AI can save it.

Let’s be honest, the biotechnology sector is currently struggling.This is particularly true for Pharmaceuticals. And no, I’m not referring to the COVID-19 vaccine hangover – which certainly isn’t helping anything – but a broader decades long trend. It’s bitter to say it, especially when I’ve spent my entire life training to be in this field. But there’s no way of getting around this truth. Things won’t get better until we admit there is a problem. What is that issue? There is something fundamentally broken with the traditional drug development pipeline

New Poll Shows Little Change, Ipsos
A Reuters/Ipsos poll after the first debate shows Harris still leading Trump 47% to 42%, with many voters believing Harris displayed higher moral integrity and won the debate

Lewinsky Praises Drudge, The Hill
Monica Lewinsky praised the Drudge Report for calling the Trump-Harris debate “The End” for Trump’s campaign, referencing Drudge’s role in exposing her affair with Clinton.

82% Say Debate Didn’t Matter, ABC News
Early polls show Harris won the debate, but 82% of viewers said it did not change their vote, and only 4% reported fully reconsidering, suggesting minimal impact on the race overall.

Trump Says No Mas, CNN
Trump declined a second debate with Harris, stating he already won the first one and it’s too late as voting has started, while critics argue he’s avoiding a rematch due to his poor performance.

Harris Slow To Do Interviews, NBC News
Facing criticism over limited media access, Kamala Harris plans to increase interviews with local outlets in battleground states, but her campaign will stick to a cautious media strategy.

All Eyes on Nebraska Blue Dot, USA Today
Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, dubbed the “blue dot,” is critical in the election as its single vote could break a tie in the Electoral College, making it a key focus for Harris and Trump.

Vice President Harris’s campaign added policy positions to its website and set up an outline to contrast her stances with those of former President Trump, coming a day ahead of the presidential debate between them.

The page, titled “A New Way Forward,” leads with Harris’s plans to “build an opportunity economy and lower costs for families.”

The Harris campaign site’s section on the economy outlines proposals to cut taxes for middle class families; make rent more affordable and homeownership more attainable; grow small businesses and invest in entrepreneurs, among other sections. And, it ends with a contrast to “Trump’s Project 2025 agenda,” which it argues would “jack up prices.”