As most people began waking from their beds, there were a couple of individuals who were making history by walking around. The first-ever private ...
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| | Top News  Getty Images As most people began waking from their beds, there were a couple of individuals who were making history by walking around. The first-ever private spacewalk was conducted by civilian astronauts Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis, two members of the four-person Polaris Dawn mission that launched to Earth orbit earlier this week. It was once again made possible by SpaceX (SPACE), which has clearly become the front-runner in the burgeoning commercial space industry following the latest debacle by Boeing (BA).
Back to the 1960s: Since the Crew Dragon spacecraft has no airlock, the only way to conduct a spacewalk is to let all the air out of the spacecraft and open the front hatch. That exposed the entire interior to the vacuum of space (a.k.a. vented), requiring all four astronauts aboard to don spacesuits. The extravehicular activity (EVA) was made possible by new handrails that SpaceX named Skywalker, and took place 870 miles above Earth, which is 3x higher than the International Space Station (or the deepest point ventured into space by humans without going to the moon).
The key objective of the spacewalk was to test SpaceX's new suits, which were developed in-house to prepare for further missions to the final frontier. "It's not lost on us that, you know, it might be 10 iterations from now and a bunch of evolutions of the suit, but that, someday, someone could be wearing a version of [it] that might be walking on Mars," Isaacman declared. "And it feels like, again, a huge honor to have that opportunity to test it out on this flight."
Space race: Tech entrepreneur and billionaire Jared Isaacman is an accomplished pilot and CEO of Shift4 Payments (FOUR), but he's not the only one interested in space. The industry has been growing at an exponential rate, although many new entrants have struggled in the public markets. Others have blasted above the exosphere in 2024, including AST SpaceMobile (ASTS), EchoStar (SATS) and Intuitive Machines (LUNR), which are looking to capitalize on satellite and exploration technologies. | | Featured 
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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Seeking Alpha does not offer any personalized investment advice. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker, U.S. investment adviser, or investment bank. | | AI Microsoft-backed OpenAI is in discussions for a $6.5B funding round from investors, according to fresh reports. It would value the world's biggest artificial intelligence startup at around $150B, which is nearly double OpenAI's valuation of $86B earlier this year. The round will be led by Thrive Capital, with participation from Microsoft ( MSFT), while Apple ( AAPL) and Nvidia ( NVDA) have also been in talks about investing in the startup. OpenAI is additionally weighing a $5B revolving credit facility as it continues to invest heavily to maintain its edge in the AI race. ( 28 comments) | | Economy Traders on Wednesday strengthened bets that the Fed will cut interest rates by a quarter point next week instead of a jumbo 50 bps move. While the headline CPI figure was in line with expectations, core inflation data came in slightly hotter than expected. Markets initially fell on the news, but later ended the volatile session higher, which "appeared to be in response to the market favoring the prospect of a rate cut at all," according to SA Investing Group Leader Daniel Jones. The producer price index will also be released this morning, while the ECB is expected to cut rates again today, beating the Fed to the party. ( 17 comments) | | Regulation Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic broke the central bank's trading restrictions, its internal watchdog revealed in a report, but noted there was no evidence that he made trades based on insider information. Bostic created an "appearance of acting on confidential" information from the FOMC following the execution of 154 trades on his behalf since 2018 during the committee's so-called blackout periods. This, in turn, created an "appearance of a conflict of interest," with the scale and timing of his trades nonetheless raising concerns. ( 9 comments) | | Today's Markets In Asia, Japan +3.4%. Hong Kong +0.8%. China -0.2%. India +1.8%.
In Europe, at midday, London +0.8%. Paris +0.8%. Frankfurt +1.2%.
Futures at 7:00, Dow +0.2%. S&P +0.2%. Nasdaq +0.1%. Crude +1.6% to $68.37. Gold flat at $2,542.20. Bitcoin +2.4% to $57,938.
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