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Live: SpaceX to launch four civilians to orbit in mission known as Inspiration4

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Re: Live: SpaceX to launch four civilians to orbit in mission known as Inspiration4

#21

Post by redis_mlc »

naanbread wrote: post #9
LeoPanthera wrote: post #5

Maybe I'm jaded but I find no "inspiration" in one billionaire sending another one into space. I know they took along "guests" but I can't imagine there's any significant science in this.

And the 100 million he donated to St Jude Childrens Hospital? Or the 220 million target for donations during the flight? I do not understand how some people can be such a wet blanket. This is history. Civilians, further out from Earth than anyone has been in 20 years...and they were able to buy a ride. This is the beginning of commercial space flight. It's the equivalent of driving a gold spike in the Transcontinenta…

No, the GP is right.

> This is the beginning of commercial space flight.

No it's not - it's the beginning of vanity rides. Well, until one blows up, that is.

> this comment made me angry

Sure, you're a space fanboi, we get it. You want to be entertained for free with rockets. Now go back to arguing who the best Star Trek commander was.

Whoever said, "We should paint racing stripes on pairs of rockets and race them to orbit like NASCAR." had you in mind.

Re: Live: SpaceX to launch four civilians to orbit in mission known as Inspiration4

#22

Post by wslack »

sen wrote: post #16

Considering the Bezos/Branson debacle, I think it's easy for people to get lost in the "This is just another billionaire paying to go to space" thing... and it is, but that's a small part of it. The passengers themselves are basically unimportant compared to the bigger picture. Who cares if the passengers are some random billionaire and a group of people carefully chosen purely as a publicity stunt, let him have his…

I think its meaningful that the first one of these wasn't "a billionaire and his three friends."

I also like the fundraising component, such as auctioning one of the seats via charitable lottery and deliberately choosing a peds cancer survivor.

Re: Live: SpaceX to launch four civilians to orbit in mission known as Inspiration4

#23

Post by dev_tty01 »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #5

Maybe I'm jaded but I find no "inspiration" in one billionaire sending another one into space. I know they took along "guests" but I can't imagine there's any significant science in this.

How very sad for you. You are jaded. Yes, there is some science, but this is about the very early stages of opening space to a much broader swath of people. The income levels of these first few people is irrelevant. Who do you think flew on the first trans-Atlantic flights? Was it worth it for those people to fly and help airlines sustain a precarious early business model? Yes, it was. Now, most people can fly overseas with some planning and/or saving. Use your imagination to consider the longer term possibilities. All new things have a starting point.

Re: Live: SpaceX to launch four civilians to orbit in mission known as Inspiration4

#26

Post by marcodiego »

vgchh wrote: post #20

It seems so ordinary yet surreal. So second nature. Seems as if humanity has access to another realm suddenly. It probably must have felt the same when the airplanes started carrying ordinary joe blows.

First successful powered heavier-than-air experiments happened in early 1900s, by the 1960s flying many common people inside a jet was affordable.

First human in space was in 1961. We are some decades behind this time.

Re: Live: SpaceX to launch four civilians to orbit in mission known as Inspiration4

#27

Post by teraflop »

psyman wrote: post #24

At 4:25:22, an object passes the behind the rocket nozzle, anyone else notice it ?

Looks fairly unremarkable to me. It's passing between the camera and the engine nozzle, so it must be very small -- maybe a speck of dust or a fleck of paint.

Bear in mind that at this point in the video, the spacecraft is in direct sunlight and the background is pitch-black, so it doesn't take much to reflect enough light to be visible.

Re: Live: SpaceX to launch four civilians to orbit in mission known as Inspiration4

#28

Post by ChuckMcM »

sen wrote: post #16

Considering the Bezos/Branson debacle, I think it's easy for people to get lost in the "This is just another billionaire paying to go to space" thing... and it is, but that's a small part of it. The passengers themselves are basically unimportant compared to the bigger picture. Who cares if the passengers are some random billionaire and a group of people carefully chosen purely as a publicity stunt, let him have his…

Agree. The challenges are still real in that with enough of these you'll lose people (just like you do in airplanes occasionally) but this is a pretty significant moment. I haven't seen any mention of any "science" they are going to do which was a late add to the qualification list for astronaut, and it was really apparent the difference between having access to the NASA deep space network vs not having that access. Once Starlink is a bit more populated the access to the NASA DSN should not be a problem.

The other interesting thing to note is that SpaceX needed to use pad 39A for this but they are actively building a launch facility in Boca Chica. So this will force the issue of launch air traffic control which appears fairly primitive given that the US only has 2 launch locations.

And finally there is the whole, 3 days in orbit vs the 3 minutes of free fall that Virgin and Blue Origin offer. Certainly there is an interesting value proposition there. I don't know if it covers the $62M which is the 'cost to LEO' that SpaceX nominally charges. Let's say it did, then a tourist flight with a ticket price of $20M[1] each would have a nominal gross margin of nearly 30% suggests a pretty viable business model.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roscosmos#:~:text=Roscosmos%20....

Re: Live: SpaceX to launch four civilians to orbit in mission known as Inspiration4

#30

Post by mensetmanusman »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #5

Maybe I'm jaded but I find no "inspiration" in one billionaire sending another one into space. I know they took along "guests" but I can't imagine there's any significant science in this.

This is a part of a significant Science endeavor. It’s not the most or least important part, but it is a part.

Whether you find inspiration or not is more a reflection of your current internal state than anything :).

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