Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

spacex.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 513 posts

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

#251

Post by jurjenh »

T-A wrote: post #150
gravypod wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's about .7kPa of atmos on mars. I'd have a hard time seeing how that would meaningfully influence escape or entrance velocity. In fact it should make entry easier because you'll have a higher resistance coming in meaning you'll have to do a lower deceleration burn. Could you provide a source, of someone with experiance in this sort of work, telling me why this is the case? Why does this completely change the ga…

http://www.universetoday.com/7024/the-mars-landing-approach-... Money quote: “There’s too much atmosphere on Mars to land heavy vehicles like we do on the moon, using propulsive technology completely,” said Manning, “and there’s too little atmosphere to land like we do on Earth. So, it’s in this ugly, grey zone.”

I believe that comment is more or less based on the shuttle landing and/or the soyuz capsules (eg parachutes) - but as far as I can tell, SpaceX is the only one currently capable (and using) propulsive landing on earth - so essentially they've already leapfrogged the grey zone to a large extent.

Makes me wonder whether testing a propulsive landing on an airborne drone barge is feasible? A blimp with a well-insulated large pad on the top - though I'm not sure how you'd effectively anchor it in the air - probably a active propulsion system as well.

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

#252

Post by wavefunction »

avmich wrote: post #140

> "Falcon Heavy is due to launch its first test flight this summer and, once successful, will be the most powerful vehicle to reach orbit after the Saturn V moon rocket." SpaceX at its usual :) . By which criteria Energiya is less powerful vehicle to reach orbit than Falcon Heavy?

I think it's a bit of weird language. From comparing what specs I could find Energia had significantly greater LEO capacity (200% of Falcon Heavy), and a slight advantage in GTO payloads, a slight disadvantage at trans-lunar payloads and has no capacity at all for trans-Martian payloads where the Falcon Heavy can deliver 14,000kg/14 tonnes/30864.717lbs of payload.

So I think they are claiming that title due to Energia dropping off after trans-lunar ranges assuming Falcon Heavy reaches "orbit" and then travels further beyond.

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

#253

Post by jessriedel »

dperfect wrote: post #232
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…

> 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? I don't want to downplay SpaceX at all because I'm a huge fan, but isn't flying someone to the moon (and presumably back) more complicated than just flying…

Right. SpaceX doesn't have a craft capable of lunar orbit rendezvous

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_orbit_rendezvous

so they would need to return to the Earth directly from the surface of the moon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_ascent

Direct ascent requires a much larger initial launch mass, i.e., a larger rocket than has ever been built. Since it took the massive Saturn V to complete the Apollo missions using lunar rendezvous, and SpaceX's Falcon Heavy is smaller, I don't think they are even close to having the ability to land on the moon and return.

(And that's assuming there's not other insurmountable factors preventing Dragon from landing on the moon and taking off, which there probably are.)

Hopefully someone with more knowledge can chime in.

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

#254

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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…

> there isn't anything about a privately funded and established outpost that wants to declare independence

Practically speaking, there isn't anything the UN can do if America sticks a base on Mars and calls it sovereign soil. We've already started legalising private ownership of celestial bodies through the SPACE Act, in direct contravention of the Outer Space Treaty.

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

#255

Post by gus_massa »

mmaunder wrote: post #212
runesoerensen wrote: post #5

> 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 :)

It could be Elon.

I was thinking the same. Relevant xkcd https://what-if.xkcd.com/124/

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

#256

Post by [deleted] »

Cerium wrote: post #240
ChuckMcM wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a taxpayer (who was just reminded this past weekend of how much that is :-) I'm really glad that NASA had enough budget to spend on the Commercial Crew program. Given that the NASA budget of $18.5B[1] is a rounding error on the overall budget $3,540B[2], seriously it's a half a percent. And commercial crew was only $1.2B [ibid] of that NASA budget. So less than .05%. Again rounding error. And with that money they…

If instead of increasing military spending 54 billion, we gave it all to NASA, we could be quadrupling NASA's budget.

[deleted]

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

#257

Post by pinewurst »

Animats wrote: post #231
splitrocket wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason you have a computer that fits in your pocket, much less requires its own room with a reinforced floor is due to the NASA space program. On edit: meant for the parent comment, but its parent instead

The reason you have a computer that fits in your pocket, much less requires its own room with a reinforced floor is due to the NASA space program. No. That's a common misconception. ICs were a commercial development, and microprocessors came from the calculator industry. Pre-IC electronics miniaturization was pushed hard by the USAF; NASA just used it. The USAF had a flyable transistorized computer in 1954, before NA…

Also Polaris, a little bit earlier (deployed 1960) had a very small transistorized guidance computer which was the design root of the Apollo Guidance Computer. Polaris was much more of a DDA (digital differential analyzer) than real computer though.

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

#258

Post by nickff »

makomk wrote: post #194
robotresearcher wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Of course, that time around it lead to the Apollo 1 fire killing the first crew in on-the-ground testing before they even got as far as trying to launch them into Earth orbit. Probably not something to be looked up to.

I would bet that the astronauts in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs thought there would be more than one fatal spacecraft failure by the end of Apollo. A number of astronauts (who never got to space) also died during training (in aircraft crashes in other incidents).

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

#259

Post by United857 »

runesoerensen wrote: post #5

> 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 :)

James Cameron? He seems to have a penchant for this stuff.

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

#260

Post by Stanish »

1001101 wrote: post #213
mikeash wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tax dollars we spent on this would probably have funded about twelve seconds of the Iraq occupation instead, so I'd say sure, easily worth it.

Along those lines, just the air conditioning for tents in Iraq and Afghanistan circa 2011 eclipsed NASA's budget http://gizmodo.com/5813257/air-conditioning-our-military-cos...

Luckily, it was all worth it. Iraq is a free democracy now, and spreading peace throughout the region.
Post reply on HN