While this feat depends on hitting a lot of intermediate milestones - Falcon Heavy Test, Crew Dragon Unmanned to ISS, Crew Dragon manned to ISS, etc, there is no "show-stopper" that is apparent right now. I like how they have avoided committing to the much harder "landing on the Moon and then return" scenario.
Everyone's always so cynical... They're sending (presumably) two non-astronauts further than any humans have ever been. I assume there will be future milestones that probably include landing on the moon to test the Mars landing.
Landing on the moon to "test" the Mars landing makes almost no sense. The a moon is just to different, landing on mars can be trained much better on Earth or on Mars itself. The simuliertes are not enough to make it sensible if you don't have another reason to land on the moon too.
There's gravity and a rock. Ignoring all the differences these still two extremely hard things to solve first before you start thinking of anything else.
There's gravity and a rock on Earth too. Just going up into orbit, then landing back on Earth, is a much better way of testing a Mars landing.
While this feat depends on hitting a lot of intermediate milestones - Falcon Heavy Test, Crew Dragon Unmanned to ISS, Crew Dragon manned to ISS, etc, there is no "show-stopper" that is apparent right now. I like how they have avoided committing to the much harder "landing on the Moon and then return" scenario.
We choose to not go to the moon, but do the other things, not because they are hard, but because they are relatively easy, and we can make a quick buck.
I disagree about the "quick buck"
The surprising thing about this announcement is that its a private mission. SpaceX has long resisted private tourism, to pursue CRS and Commercial Crew missions. I'm sure several billionaires would have written a large check, long ago, to go into orbit.
> We are excited to announce that SpaceX has been approached to fly two private citizens on a trip around the moon late next year. They have already paid a significant deposit to do a moon mission. Can't wait to hear who booked this trip! Definitely one of the coolest ways to spend a lot of superfluous money :)
The cold war? A national effort? Dead crews during the project? I mean, I'm half joking, I believe that it is a possible objective, as much as it is possible to manufacture 500k Model 3s a year.. next year. Possible, but a monumental effort and something on which Musk strongly disagrees even with the top managers in his own companies.
The space ship is already being developed for the Commercial Crew program. The rocket is a new rocket but with the same engines and the same upper stage. This does not seem so impossible. A couple of delays will happen, but all in all, there is no fundamental problem.
I agree, there is no fundamental problem. But that couple of delays will bring the actual date much further away than "late next year". I'm sure Elon Musk is capable of great things, it's just that he's very obviously squeezing the people in his companies to the limits and beyond, by publicly announcing objectives that are just about possible, provided that his employees will work day and night for entire years.
Landing on the moon to "test" the Mars landing makes almost no sense. The a moon is just to different, landing on mars can be trained much better on Earth or on Mars itself. The simuliertes are not enough to make it sensible if you don't have another reason to land on the moon too.
There's gravity and a rock. Ignoring all the differences these still two extremely hard things to solve first before you start thinking of anything else.
The Moon has no atmosphere to use to shed speed. Very different animal than a Mars landing, to the point where it'd need a totally different landing vehicle than Mars.
Think heavy, shielded Apollo command modules versus the spidery lunar landers.
"We seem to have somehow miscalculated our trajectories and the vehicle is now permanently locked in low lunar orbit forever with no recourse. Sorry for the inconvenience."
Well, they haven't got a lander for one thing. The Apollo LM had its design finalised in '63, and only flew in '65. SpaceX would surely do it quicker now, with the benefit of experience, but from scratch to operations in a year for such a unique vehicle is quite unrealistic.
Dragon is only capable of crash-landing using its engines? I.e. there is not enough propellant, legs, etc... to do a soft landing? (not even considering take-off right now)
It can land on Earth, because it uses the atmosphere to shed most of its speed, and rockets for the very last couple hundred miles an hour. No such luck on the airless Moon.