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NASA’s Artemis Program is slated to take humans — including a Canadian — back to the moon’s neighbourhood as soon as next year. Elon Musk has dreams of sending people to Mars in four years. The Polaris Dawn mission isÌýa piece of that grand puzzle.

The spacewalk was a success, allowing two crew members to climb atop a ladder and test the mobility of the new suits. It also offered pristine views of our planet.

“Back at home, we all have a lot of work to do,” Isaacman said as he exited the ship, then travelling about 740 kilometres above the South Pacific. “But from here, earth sure looks like a perfect world.”

Only four Canadians have walked in space. Three of them spoke to the Star about what the Polaris Dawn astronautsÌýexperienced Thursday when they floated above Earth.

Training comes in handy

Astronauts spend years training for a spacewalk.

Steve MacLean, who spent seven hours outside the International Space Station in 2006, began with a basic training course of four to five dives in the water, simulating the weightless conditions of space.

Then he advanced to the yearlong skills course, during which he did 20 to 25 dives. Then he did simulations in the pool to test procedures. Then he was selected for a mission — aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis, originally scheduled for 2003 but delayed by three years after the Columbia disaster — and did mission-specific training.

Then, finally, he went to space.

All of this training is essential to make sure they know how to move in the suit and navigate while weightless. It is also essential for dealing with problems.

“If you wait until the experience to deal with (things going wrong), then you’re probably going to die,� said Chris Hadfield, the first Canadian commander of the I.S.S. who did two spacewalks himself. “It’s not something (where) you just wing it, or go with good looks and charm.�

The Polaris Dawn crew spent two and a half years training for its mission, most of which was focused on the spacewalk.

The view is terrific

When that training paidÌýoff and two of the crew members — Isaacman and Sarah Gillis, a lead space operations engineer at SpaceX — finally stepped into space, the view wasÌýunparalleled.

“Earth is separate from you as a planet and you are in space itself,� Hadfield said. “That is an extremely significant personal moment and an extremely rare moment in human history.�

Indeed, it isÌýmore than just the view. It is an intense emotional revelation.

“You look down at the earth at some place you’ve been to,� said MacLean, who also led the Canadian Space Agency for five years. “It would trigger a memory of when I was there. And then you immediately bounce back up to look at it from where you are.�

In this moment, the astronautsÌýalso had to find their bearings, preparing themselves for the potential vertigo and adjusting to the mechanics of moving while weightless.

“Even if you’re a veteran astronaut,� said three-time spacewalker Dave Williams, “you don’t really know how you’re going to react to being outside in this vacuum of space, kind of looking … 400 kilometres at the earth below you.�

It is a lot of work

A spacewalk is mentally and physically exhausting.

That’s because it takes an exorbitant amount of energy to do anything. The suit is pressurized, meaning your natural position will be legs straight, arms straight and fingers fully extended, according to Williams, who spent 17 hours and 43 minutes spacewalking, a Canadian record. It takes work to bend any joint.

So astronauts spend an hour and a half in the gym, five days a week. They do cardio every day, too.

“You want to be like a rock climber,� Williams said. “You want to have a lot of upper extremity strength and endurance, but you don’t want to bulk up and not be able to fit in your spacesuit.�

You also have to rethink everything you know.

Say you’re trying to use a pistol grip tool — basically an electric drill — to loosen a bolt. You press the trigger. If you don’t stabilize yourself first, sometimes by locking yourself into a restraint system, the bolt won’t spin. You will.

And you do everything wearing what amounts to bulky, cumbersome hockey mitts.

The Polaris Dawn astronauts did not have the same, extensive task list as a spacewalk on the I.S.S. would. Instead, they spent only about 10 minutes each outside the capsule, performing a choreographed sequence of movements that tested the new suits.

But during a spacewalk,Ìýyou’re always on edge. A little mistake can mean a whole lot of trouble.

“If you have a problem spacewalking, you may have the rest of your life to solve the problem,� Williams said. “It’s an environment that really does get your attention.�

Things can always go wrong

On Hadfield’s first spacewalk, he went temporarily blind.

The anti-fog treatment on his visor got into both his eyes, but because he had trained multiple times in the pool on what to do if a crew member was incapacitated, he kept calm.

“It was just a thing,� he said coolly. “I was more irritated that I wasn’t maybe going to be able to complete all of the objectives of the spacewalk, because you’re taking an enormous risk to go do one.�

Likewise, the Polaris Dawn crewÌýtrained extensively, Hadfield said. They had backup plans to backup plans, and the spacewalk happened largely without a hitch.

While Isaacman had to manually open the capsule hatch, something that should have happened with the press of a button, and Gillis spotted bulges in the hatch seal, neither hitch presented a problem for the mission.

The astronauts will be exhausted

Even with only a few minutes outside the capsule, the Polaris Dawn crew is guaranteed toÌýbe exhausted afterwards.

“It’s a marathon of focus, in a way. You just make sure you don’t make a mistake,� MacLean said. “I was spent. I slept right through the night.�