311–320 of 513 posts
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
Im curious it might be two lovers, with intimate heavenly aspirations.
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> Can't wait to hear who booked this trip! Definitely one of the coolest ways to spend a lot of superfluous money :) Imagine it ends up being some celebrity, like Leonardo di Caprio (who has shown interest in space IIRC) or Lady Gaga. Don't you think it would somehow tarnish the whole thing?
Why would a figure with so much PR fire power tarnish it? If anything it would put space exploration front and center for so many young and adolescence people.
I find this schedule very very unlikely. No humans have flown in the Dragon at all yet. Also none on any of SpaceX:s rockets. There have been lots of launch and pad failures. I'm cheering for SpaceX for doing more towards spacefaring, but I'm very skeptical and think this will, at least, end up being negative PR to them, and, at worst, a lot more.
I'm glad to see somebody questioning the timescale. There is definitely a huge blind spot around Musk around here.
The timescale is bullshit-- the past two failures have both pushed things back a ways, and at this point I'm not optimistic there won't be more failures soon (although I strongly believe they'll succeed completely in the long term regardless). Things would have to go perfectly for this timescale to actually happen.
But what really makes me nervous is the thought of it going wrong and people dying. That would be pretty terrible. I feel like they need to do a lot more testing before they can send anyone around the moon in a mere 18-20months. That's just too soon. F9 is still having confusing failures after years in service. Falcon Heavy hasn't even flown once yet, nor Dragon 2.
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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…
Why is it so important to send people on these missions outside of some 21st century version of manifest destiny? NASA could do so much more with its limited funding if it just cut out all the humans.
> ... two private citizens ... have already paid a significant deposit to do a moon mission. Like the Apollo astronauts before them, these individuals will travel into space carrying the hopes and dreams of all humankind ... Except that these two private citizens are presumably absurdly wealthy. Whereas the nationalize space program which brought forth the Apollo mission gave all private citizens, as well as schoolch…
>Except that these two private citizens are presumably absurdly wealthy. Whereas the nationalize space program which brought forth the Apollo mission gave all private citizens, as well as schoolchildren for generations, hope and aspirational outlooks. I doubt it's any more difficult to get absurdly wealthy than to become an astronaut.
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> 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 u…
On the upside, they can land an un-manned assent vehicle on the surface of Moon / Mars before sending people there. Which can significantly increase your odds of getting back.
PS: Yes, NASA did get to the moon and back several times, but they also took a massive chunk of US GDP to do so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#/media/File:NAS...
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…
"Once operational Crew Dragon missions are underway for NASA, SpaceX will launch the private mission on a journey to circumnavigate the moon and return to Earth."
I don't know why people are arguing over whether they are landing or not...
