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SpaceX to Send Privately Crewed Dragon Spacecraft Beyond the Moon Next Year

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Re: SpaceX to Send Privately Crewed Dragon Spacecraft Beyond the Moon Next Year

#161

Post by ChuckMcM »

Wow. This sends so many thoughts cascading through my head that I'm dizzy.

Some things to consider, China has been working up to getting a space capability to send people to the Moon with the full backing of the government funding, by 2035[1]. They started in 2003. SpaceX was founded in 2002 and they are saying they will fly someone around the moon next year? Dragon has the deltaV to land on the moon (not sure if it has enough to get off again though) and SpaceX certainly has the expertise in building spacecraft that land.

The next person to take a picture of the Earth from moon may not be on a government funded mission. That one really blows my mind. For so long it was only countries that could do something like that, now it is nearly within reach of individuals.

The UN has treaties about claiming (or not) the moon by a nation state, but there isn't anything about a privately funded and established outpost that wants to declare independence. All this time I imagined that some country would establish a base there, and grudgingly offer up some space for non-state use, and now there is this possibility of a private facility that states have to ask permission to visit? That is priceless.

[1] http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2016/04/29/man-on-the-moo...

Re: SpaceX to Send Privately Crewed Dragon Spacecraft Beyond the Moon Next Year

#162

Post by Mithaldu »

paulddraper wrote: post #158
solidr53 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same! I also think that spending money on a roundtrip to the moon is way better for humanity than spending it on champagne, caviar and cars.

> I also think that spending money on a roundtrip to the moon is way better for humanity than spending it on champagne, caviar and cars. How? I'm not saying you're wrong, but gut instinct is that automobiles are more useful to humans. I'd like to hear your thought process.

Fair question. In short: Unless you're buying Tesla your car expenditures won't fund any significant research into improving cars in a way that benefits humankind.

Re: SpaceX to Send Privately Crewed Dragon Spacecraft Beyond the Moon Next Year

#163

Post by godelski »

M_Grey wrote: post #151
rodionos wrote: post #141

Shouldn't they consider a staged approach, not unlike FDA trials. Start with a Laika dog, proceed with a chimp, as all other space programs have done in the past? Also, if this succeeds, what happens to Google's moonshot projects? Is rebranding in the works?

Probably they should. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13745315

Well there's a huge difference when talking about radiation exposures going to the moon and Mars. For one you don't expect a solar event to happen, you really hope one doesn't, when going to the moon. Going to Mars you expect a few.

With cosmic radiation we're talking about the difference between a few days and a year. Plus you have to have pretty good shielding when crossing the Van Allen belts.

You can consider the Apollo missions the trial phases. We learned a lot there.

Re: SpaceX to Send Privately Crewed Dragon Spacecraft Beyond the Moon Next Year

#164

Post by hackuser »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #161

Wow. This sends so many thoughts cascading through my head that I'm dizzy. Some things to consider, China has been working up to getting a space capability to send people to the Moon with the full backing of the government funding, by 2035[1]. They started in 2003. SpaceX was founded in 2002 and they are saying they will fly someone around the moon next year? Dragon has the deltaV to land on the moon (not sure if it…

> The next person to take a picture of the Earth from moon may not be on a government funded mission.

Note that the press release says:

Most importantly, we would like to thank NASA, without whom this would not be possible. NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which provided most of the funding for Dragon 2 development, is a key enabler for this mission.

Your tax dollars, if you are American, helped pay for this. Thank you and congratulations - if it works out; if not, was it worth the risk?

EDIT: In response to many below, remember that the U.S. military isn't the only alternative use of the money. Taxpayers could keep it, or it could go to other programs such as education and health. (Personally, I'd happily pay more taxes for more space exploration, education, health, and military necessary for security.)

Re: SpaceX to Send Privately Crewed Dragon Spacecraft Beyond the Moon Next Year

#165

Post by avar »

davidklemke wrote: post #26

Absolutely incredible. This will be the furthest that humanity has journeyed away from Earth in a very long time. However it is worth noting that there hasn't been a single crewed Dragon flight yet. There are demonstator flights scheduled for this year though with the first NASA crewed mission slated for May 2018. That's an incredibly aggressive timeline but if anyone can achieve it, SpaceX can. The long duration fli…

They've already had Dragon flights where they've said "if there were humans aboard, they'd have been just fine", i.e. the Dragon's life-support capabilities have been tested.

You don't have to have flown humans to test whether you can fly humans, you know you were able to maintain a breathable atmosphere, and you know you have enough fuel to launch a few hundred kilos of meatbags, food & water.

Re: SpaceX to Send Privately Crewed Dragon Spacecraft Beyond the Moon Next Year

#166

Post by chris_va »

coryfklein wrote: post #98
solidr53 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same! I also think that spending money on a roundtrip to the moon is way better for humanity than spending it on champagne, caviar and cars.

Not sure everyone will see it that way. One could look at it as taking the whole "wasteful private jet" to the extreme. Think of the sheer amount of fuel burned in the earth's atmosphere so a rich guy can fly in space. At least, I expect many will spin it that way.

Interestingly, the Falcon Heavy has similar fuel capacity to a 747.

(plus or minus)

Re: SpaceX to Send Privately Crewed Dragon Spacecraft Beyond the Moon Next Year

#167

Post by godelski »

Maultasche wrote: post #125
hackuser wrote: post #113

Note that NASA, I believe at Trump's urging, recently said they would try to place humans on the first flight of the Space Launch System (the new heavy lift rocket) - i.e., no unmanned testing first. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/science/nasa-looks-to-spe... Is Musk still maintaining a relationship with Trump? When Uber founder Travis Kalanick left Trump's business council, Musk was still on it AFAIK. I wonder i…

NASA agreed to do a study to see if they could place humans on the test flight. That seems to me like the NASA equivalent of saying "Sure, I'll look into that" while trying to not look horrified. I'm pretty sure that study will conclude that this is a bad idea.

I know for a fact that NASA is still concerned about that Helium tank.

Re: SpaceX to Send Privately Crewed Dragon Spacecraft Beyond the Moon Next Year

#168

Post by avar »

edsouza wrote: post #91
ktta wrote: post #12

I wonder if it is going to be only two people who are going to go. Will they add more people if they come forward with significant amount of money too? Seems to me like the cost of taking in another person will be negligible in comparison to the funding they could contribute. This is literally a one-in-a-lifetime experience

The two private citizens will need a support team in capsule unless they are experienced astronauts and have the technical skills to learn all the systems on the dragon crew capsule.

Do you have a source stating that the people crewing the Dragon would need to do anything at all? Won't it just be on autopilot, what duties is the crew of the capsule expected to perform?

Re: SpaceX to Send Privately Crewed Dragon Spacecraft Beyond the Moon Next Year

#170

Post by ehnto »

robotresearcher wrote: post #117
ehnto wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the same way that hitting a stuck bolt with a hammer is a strategy. It applies pressure sure, but you break your tools and the nut gets stripped. It seems to a preferred motivation method though.

It worked before. Kennedy's moon shot speech was 8 years and 2 months before Apollo 11 landed on the moon. The speech was made before the US had put a person in orbit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T1ztqhYQ7g

It definitely works, and you might argue that when it comes to forwarding humanity, then what of a few exhausted engineers! But in other contexts perhaps not an elegant methodology.
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