I love that a moon mission is a milestone en route to SpaceX' moonshot, not the moonshot itself. We need new idioms for these people.
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
#182Is it still a thing, where going to space makes you infertile due to radiation? I feel like I remember basically once you go into space (male or female) kids are off the table afterwards unless you have frozen your sperm or eggs beforehand. Not sure if that was solved at some point or not.
As long as you stay near the Earth (the moon is close enough), our magnetosphere will protect you from radiation. When you get interplanetary, like on a trip to Mars, radiation exposure becomes arguable the most difficult problem to solve.
Source?
> The Mars Radiation Environment Experiment (MARIE) was launched in 2001 in order to collect more data. Estimates are that humans unshielded in interplanetary space would receive annually roughly 400 to 900 mSv (compared to 2.4 mSv on Earth) and that a Mars mission (12 months in flight and 18 months on Mars) might expose shielded astronauts to roughly 500 to 1000 mSv. [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_threat_from_cosmic_rays...
Re: SpaceX to Send Privately Crewed Dragon Spacecraft Beyond the Moon Next Year
#183Re: SpaceX to Send Privately Crewed Dragon Spacecraft Beyond the Moon Next Year
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
True, but nobody has the money to develop something that needs multible moon test mission before it ever gets used productively. Also, SpaceX has actually thought about the problem quite a bit and until somebody payed them they clearly said they are not going to do anything moon related. They clearly did the same calculations. Moon is only worth it, if you actually want to go to the moon.
> True, but nobody has the money to develop something that needs multible moon test mission before it ever gets used productively. No one would be willing to fund anything that hasn't gone through at least one viability test on the closest short term analogous scale.
You can repeat that as often as you want, that does not make it true.
SpaceX clearly did not think that for their mars architecture needed a moon testing step. Mars concepts such as Mars Direct did not include such a step.
Unless you have extreme time pressure its much, much, much preferable to test on Earth and Mars, rather then the Moon. Earth because it's by far the cheapest, and it shares a reasonable amount with Mars, and Mars because that's where you want to go anyway.
The only advantage that the moon has is that it is closer than mars in pure distance. That advantage is eradicated when you consider the much more important DeltaV.
Re: SpaceX to Send Privately Crewed Dragon Spacecraft Beyond the Moon Next Year
#185I wonder who the people going on this trip are. Are they billionaires, a rich couple planning a honeymoon. You'd have to be rich to do this right? I also wonder which kind of insurance both Spacex and the individuals have for this. It's amazing that private companies are now doing things that were previously only one by governments and nations. I don't know how this will work out but congratulations to Musk, Spacex a…
That's really stretching the definition of private company considering NASA is the major provider of both funding and infrastructure.
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Re: SpaceX to Send Privately Crewed Dragon Spacecraft Beyond the Moon Next Year
#186I wonder who the people going on this trip are. Are they billionaires, a rich couple planning a honeymoon. You'd have to be rich to do this right? I also wonder which kind of insurance both Spacex and the individuals have for this. It's amazing that private companies are now doing things that were previously only one by governments and nations. I don't know how this will work out but congratulations to Musk, Spacex a…
That's really stretching the definition of private company considering NASA is the major provider of both funding and infrastructure.
A lot of innovation was initially funded by the government especially in Silicon Valley. That said, Spacex is still legally a private company.
Many a time, when companies engage in capital intensive business endeavours they need someone to provide some incentive or even build the initial technology. NASA does this here much like DARPA did with the Internet's initial infrastructure.
Re: SpaceX to Send Privately Crewed Dragon Spacecraft Beyond the Moon Next Year
#187Wow. 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 yo…
Rockets (or any research) > bombs any day of the week.
Yes, my tax dollars going towards research (even indirectly) is better than the way most of my money is spent
Re: SpaceX to Send Privately Crewed Dragon Spacecraft Beyond the Moon Next Year
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The explosion from that helium tank was slower than the emergency rockets on the dragon, from what I understand. So, had the capsule been fitted with them, it would have stayed entirely clear of the event. It'd be a rough ride, but it would have been a survivable event.
Re: SpaceX to Send Privately Crewed Dragon Spacecraft Beyond the Moon Next Year
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone replying is missing this oppositized JFK quote: "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." -JFK
I don't think anyone is missing that, cutesy little jokes like that just don't tend to do well here on HN.
I think possibly lots of people are missing it. How well known is Kennedy's speech for those who weren't alive at the time? And yes it was a joke, but contained within the joke is a pointed commentary.
Re: SpaceX to Send Privately Crewed Dragon Spacecraft Beyond the Moon Next Year
#190Wow. 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 yo…
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.