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SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

nasa.gov

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Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#651

Post by thu2111 »

trentdk wrote: post #537
Chathamization wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A human astronaut could probably accomplish as much in a week as a Mars rover can in a year. The estimates I've seen for a human mission to Mars are about 100-500 times the budget for Curiosity. So even if astronauts could accomplish things 52X faster (and I'm skeptical they would), it still wouldn't be as cost efficient. And that's even before you factor in the fact that the Mars Rover is going to be doing work on…

I appreciate your thoughts, but they are sad thoughts to me. Isn’t there something about “exploration” that seems important to a non-neglible amount of humans? I don’t want everything we do to serve the rat race we’re in. Let’s loose our money on something amazing.

Our notion of exploration is very much tied to ancient history and in particular exploring places that we could not otherwise learn anything about other than by going there. The problem with space exploration is that we already have explored it to a huge degree just by using telescopes and remote probes. It's not entirely clear what humans could learn by going to somewhere like Mars, that couldn't otherwise be learned using satellites, robots and telescopes.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#652

Post by logarhythmic »

jerome-jh wrote: post #637

The first man in space was launched by the russians almost _60_ years ago. That was history. Then the americans sent men to the moon, that was history too, and _50_ years ago. We realized sending human into space was not really useful, so that more or less stopped. The ISS was an international endeavor with questionable scientific goals, but still it was fun and an unprecedented global collaboration. The Mars rovers…

Thanks, I was looking for the most cynical possible position that I could adopt on this news

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#653

Post by thu2111 »

londons_explore wrote: post #625
xjlin0 wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once the job finished, the machine is dispensable, but the astronaut definitely wanna go home, which will cost much much more.

Has nobody considered sending an older astronaut and not bothering with a return trip? I could imagine a lot of volunteers if you promised 5 years worth of dried food, comms back to earth and lots of fame.

Nobody knows their own life expectancy and geriatrics are perhaps not most suitable to survive in a harsh environment, running around an alien planet all day.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#654

Post by simonh »

cma wrote: post #371
simonh wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shuttle had a payload to LEO capacity of 27 tons, but Falcon Heavy can lift over 60 tons. The problem with the Shuttle was the orbiter itself was enormously heavy.

Wasn’t today Falcon 9? Presumably Falcon Heavy’s cost per seat is higher. Falcon 9 is 24 tons or so I think.

Sure, but I think it's fair to compare the capabilities and costs across the whole system.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#655

Post by efxhoy »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #387
TrainedMonkey wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Display can be used for manual docking, however there is no plan to ever do that outside of an emergency.

Aren't they planning on doing it tomorrow morning?

They said in the press conference after launch that docking will be automatic. The purpose of this mission is to demo dragon and testing automatic docking is part of that.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#656

Post by thu2111 »

cortesoft wrote: post #555
runarberg wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problems you list seem to apply to both fully and semi automatic machines. E.g. wouldn’t human operated mining equipment need just as much lubrication as pre-programmed ones? We never explored the surface of Mars, or landed on an asteroid before we had our machines do it, but we managed it anyway with the human operators still on Earth.

I think the difference is that humans can fix problems and adapt to changing conditions a lot better than machines currently.

But there'll still be humans. Just not necessarily physically at the mine or factory. All you really need is a robotic chassis that has sufficiently good AI to use hands and follow basic instructions, perhaps helped by a guy in a VR suit back on earth or in a nearby spaceship. Perhaps aided by simulations to ensure low latency - things in space should be easier to simulate without the outside world interfering much.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#657

Post by TeMPOraL »

runarberg wrote: post #580
cgriswald wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We already know what's out there, we have telescopes and probes. The entire field of astrobiology is a big giant question mark despite our telescopes and probes. If we'd have sent humans to Mars instead of probes, we'd either have proof of past or present life, or we'd have very convincing evidence that it doesn't or never did exist. And we'd have had that relatively quickly. Here, decades later, we know a lot more…

We are still uncovering where and how life is in Antarctica, and we’ve had humans there for decades. What makes you so sure we would be so much quicker to figure out things on Mars?

Studying Antarctica is different; we already know life is there, so we're studying the minutiae of "where and how". On Mars, we're yet to answer the two most critical questions: whether there is - or was - life, and if so, how it is related to the life on Earth, if at all.

As for figuring this out quicker: an astronaut would be able to leave their ship/base, go find some interesting rock, bag it, bring it back, slice it and observe under microscope, all in time it would take the rover to just drive towards the nearest rock. All it takes for a human to be a better sample collector than most advanced of robots on Earth is a shovel.

Robotic missions scale better and may still be more cost-effective, if we built and sent a crewed science ship to Mars orbit. It doesn't have to land, the crew could pilot dozens of rovers remotely at the same time - but this way, with much higher bandwidth (could actually drive FPV looking through a HD camera) and much less lag (which, for Earth-Mars link, is 3 to 22 minutes, depending on relative position of the planets, and that's one way, not RTT). I'd say this is the perfect trade-off until we make more progress on AI front, but it requires manned flights. And if we'll be at the point of sending science ships to Mars, we won't be that far from landing humans there anyway.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#658

Post by TeMPOraL »

adrianN wrote: post #601
mumblemumble wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to think about that from the other side, too. Just delivering the raw materials to the manufacturing facility would cost ~$3000/kg (assuming rock bottom SpaceX prices). Based on some loose googling, I think that 1kg of raw material would yield only something on the order of 100m of cable. It looks like a typical 100m fiber optic patch cable retails for about $60. So, there's clearly a lot of value to…

Orbital manufacturing makes very little sense if you source material on Earth. You need to get your raw material from the Moon or a captured asteroid.

Which is why this fiber optic thing is a big deal. They're demonstrating that you can build useful stuff in space that are a) already have a demand, and b) are infeasible or impossible to manufacture downwell. More attention = more funding, more attempts... until, I'm hoping, we'll reach critical mass and someone will start mining near-Earth asteroids, or perhaps capture one and move it a bit closer to us, at which point the prices of space material will drop. = more funding, more attempts, until someone figures out how to make stuff useful for space missions in space, and this will be the true beginning of a self-sustaining in-orbit economy.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#659

Post by thu2111 »

gibolt wrote: post #303
JshWright wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I would call seven people "many".

Only 562 have been to orbital space so far. A 1% increase on the first flight is significant. It can only increase exponentially from there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_travelers_by_nam...

That's not true. It could stay a trivial endeavor forever given there's really nothing to do in space.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#660

Post by efxhoy »

nyhc99 wrote: post #327
dmlittle wrote: post #74

Does anyone know what happens to the 2nd stage engine? Does it stay in orbit or does it eventually fall back to earth/go into space?

SpaceX was talking about trying to recover the 2nd stage back in 2018, Elon suggested they would use a giant "party balloon" and land it on a "giant bounce house." I haven't heard any talk of progress made since then. https://hackaday.com/2018/05/23/spacexs-next-giant-leap-seco...

They scrapped that idea last year afaik and are now focusing all efforts on starship which will be fully reusable.
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