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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

#471

Post by dragonwriter »

samstave wrote: post #468
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…

I've always held the following questions about space, and moon - in-specific - exploration: * Why are we not placing a DNA/Seed-vault on the moon * Why are we not depositing resources on the moon * Why dont we plan, plant, place autonomous robotic pods on the moon that can be called down/up carrying various resources * what happens to the moon if we transfer water/create water on the moon * Why cant this be a global…

> Why are we not placing a DNA/Seed-vault on the moon

Because it's expensive to get it there, useless on the moon, and expensive to get it somewhere useful in the event of need, all because of gravity wells.

> Why are we not depositing resources on the moon

Same answer.

> Why dont we plan, plant, place autonomous robotic pods on the moon that can be called down/up carrying various resources

And, again, same answer, both for the pods and the resources themselves.

> what happens to the moon if we transfer water/create water on the moon

It boils off and leaves, possibly after freezing for a while, depending on the time of lunar day you deposit the water, IIRC.

> Why cant this be a global effort

Because a really bad idea doesn't get better because more people are involved.

> Why aren't we actually practicing mars colonization on the moon first?

Because the Moon isn't very much like Mars in ways relevant to colonization, so there is no value to doing that. While perhaps some relevant technologies might benefit from the shorter feedback cycles of Earth-Moon missions for refinement, the costs of such missions are close enough to Earth-Mars missions that it's generally not worth it to go to the Moon if your goal is Mars. Just go to Mars.

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

#472

Post by ChuckMcM »

samstave wrote: post #468
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…

I've always held the following questions about space, and moon - in-specific - exploration: * Why are we not placing a DNA/Seed-vault on the moon * Why are we not depositing resources on the moon * Why dont we plan, plant, place autonomous robotic pods on the moon that can be called down/up carrying various resources * what happens to the moon if we transfer water/create water on the moon * Why cant this be a global…

To the DNA/Seed Vault question, I heard a really interesting point of view expressed which resonated with me. It was this, "Why not create a mechanism to record all of our knowledge and information so that if an extinction level event occurs we can come back from the brink?" And the answer was "If we allow ourselves to become nearly extinct, especially through our own action or inaction, isn't is more reasonable to let what ever comes after us to have a fresh start?"

Can you imagine if all of a sudden, out of the ground a bunch of Dinosaur scientists emerged having kept themselves in cryo-suspension with all of their dinosaur tech to reestablish themselves as the dominant species on the planet? Are they going to be conflicted? Do they just eradicate humans because they were first? I'm sure Charlie Stross could make up a good story along those lines. I'd read it for sure :-)

But the meta question, the big one behind all those "Why"s up there, is well understood. As a planet, and certainly as a nation, and even on as small a scale as a city, we are divided in our understanding of the reasoning for why being a multiplanet species might be more important than say, feeding the starving in Sudan.

You can have a room of 100,000 people shouting in unison to colonize Mars and that is an insignificant fraction of the people who would have to be aligned to make that the generally agreed upon plan.

And that is one of the things that makes this announcement so amazing to me. When we achieve that moment where a small enough group of individuals can effect a legitimate colonization effort, then it can happen without consensus of a nation-state and can proceed based on the self interest of a much smaller group. And while it is a staple in science fiction that corporations have fleets of space craft they use to achieve their interplanetary goals like an inter-solar Dutch East India company, I never expected it to be possible for a company to be able to do that in my lifetime.

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

#473

Post by sandworm101 »

mindcrime wrote: post #466
sandworm101 wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An elected government, at least i theory, is tasked with doing good by its people. That isnt always true, but at least there are elections. An individual person suffers no such limitation. That can act purely in thier own interest without even a tueoretical check. If they want to ride a rocket to the moon, while children on earth starve, there is absoluely nothing we poor can do about it.

Assuming their wealth was acquired legally, why do you think you should be able to "do something about it"? Wouldn't that require initiation of force, or threat of same? From where would you derive the authority to deprive someone of the legally acquired property? That isnt always true, but at least there are elections. The last of which got us Donald Freaking Trump, Jeff Sessions, Kellyanne Conway, and the other Sto…

Progressive taxation in life, inheritance taxes in death. The economy wouldn't collapse if there were fewer people with billions and a lot more people with retirement accounts and proper health care. It worked well enough in the 50s and 60s that we could afford apollo.

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

#474

Post by logfromblammo »

sandworm101 wrote: post #460
mindcrime wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The necessary implication of individuals with power enough to rival governments is that, well, they can rival governments. Do you think this is a bad thing? Personally I quite like the idea of having enough wealth / power to rival a nation-state, since I trust the average nation-state exactly as far as I can throw it.

An elected government, at least i theory, is tasked with doing good by its people. That isnt always true, but at least there are elections. An individual person suffers no such limitation. That can act purely in thier own interest without even a tueoretical check. If they want to ride a rocket to the moon, while children on earth starve, there is absoluely nothing we poor can do about it.

There is the possibility that the wealth of an individual was acquired through voluntary trade. In that case, the person has already done so much good for other people that asking them for philanthropy instead of self-indulgence is renegotiating a deal that has already closed.

In contrast, most governments have acquired massive wealth through taxation of their subjects. Those subjects are less likely to tolerate the burden of taxation without some form of reciprocal obligation by the government, such as the expectation they will feed starving children, or provide for common defense, or ensure the viability of comprehensive health care systems.

The feat of the self-made ultrawealthy individual is magnified by the possibility that they have also paid taxes while accumulating their wealth.

In the case of Musk, he appears to have earned his fortune via normal entrepreneurship and standard business practices. He has contributed to giving us Internet payment services, private orbital launch, electric cars, solar energy production, and a few other things that (presumably) enough people want to make a business of them. The theoretical check on the serial entrepreneur that has achieved escape velocity from the rat race in both figurative and literal senses is starting a new business from old exit money that eventually fails hard.

I don't want Musk to feed starving children on Earth. I want him to feed children on Mars. If he can do that, I will likely throw fistfuls of my money at his face without him having to wave a gun in mine.

But he does seem to be a rather rare breed. Many ultrawealthy people did not accumulate their wealth by fulfilling the wishes of others. If you compare the likes of Musk, Gates, and Buffett with corrupt heads of state (i.e. Vladimir Putin) and monarchs, where the personal wealth is siphoned off from government funds, those are the people who most need some form of theoretical check. Those two classes don't need to be held to the same standard, because there is a vast gulf separating wealth that was earned from wealth that was taken.

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

#475

Post by astrodust »

adrianN wrote: post #374
astrodust wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at F1 in 1972 and F1 in 2017 for an example of what relentless, continuous improvement looks like. Can you imagine what would be like if they'd given up on the series? If all that we had was NASCAR and Indy? The entire automotive industry would be over a decade behind, if not more. Most thigns people take for granted like ABS and traction control might not even exist. Look at SpaceX as an example of what happens…

We did send plenty of robot missions that wouldn't have been possible in the seventies and produced very valuable science. Rosetta and Curiosity for example are very cool missions.

Consider these very cool missions are about 1/10th of the number of missions America was in a position to do.

Consider an America with the Texas Collider operational where major discoveries were made a decade before the CERN one even existed.

Consider an America where the ARPA internet project could have been one of the least notable breakthroughs in the last thirty years.

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

#476

Post by bb611 »

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.

It's a reach to suggest that the pressure to get to the moon directly caused the Apollo 1 fire. There's no evidence that the engineering decisions that led to the fire or the poor escape hatch design would have been avoided with a longer timeline, many of them were choices made in reaction to near death experiences for previous accidents - in particular, both the choice of pure oxygen and the hatch design.

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

#477

Post by rtkwe »

varjag wrote: post #446
rtkwe wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're still not 100% that they're reusable in a meaningful way that actually reduces costs. The landings are awesome but if it costs too much to reuse them it's more a stunt than anything because as good as it is to not just chunk that hunk of metal in the ocean every launch if it's cheaper that's how it'll be done.

It's a lot easier to go from a stage that lands to one that has to be ditched than the opposite. Worst case, Musk has the same tech that the rest of the world does, although to me it's clear he has quite an advantage.

Oh yeah and personally I think that it's going to work but it hasn't been actually shown that it's cheaper and that the rockets can safely be reused. And that really won't be well shown until multiple reused rockets have been launched.

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

#478

Post by gozur88 »

jessriedel wrote: post #253
dperfect wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

They'll be able to do LOR in the Dragon 2, which would be ready in time. I question whether they have enough endurance for a lunar landing mission, though, and they would still have to develop a lander.

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

#479

Post by gozur88 »

robryk wrote: post #457
imglorp wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good question. A big bag of fuel hanging outside is a fine place to store it if you don't care about temperature or pressure. You would need some kind of mechanical means to squish the bag to get the fuel out though, so maybe an accordion with a motorized retractor?

I think you are underestimating expansion ratios (ratio of volume of liquid and gas at reasonable pressure). The ratio for water vapour at sea level is ~1000x. The "large bag" might end up being so large that it's weight is a significant fraction of the weight of the fuel it contains.

Even if you brought up a bag large enough to contain gaseous fuel and oxydizer, before you could actuall use the fuel you'd have to compress it again.

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

#480

Post by gozur88 »

skookumchuck wrote: post #372
cptskippy wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SR71 literally leaked fuel until it reached operating temperature. It had something crazy like 2 minutes to rendevous with a tanker after takeoff.

Using "milch cows" seems like a cost effective solution to fueling/supplying a moon run. Of course, the green-eyeshade crews will get to have the last say.

It's not as advantageous as you'd expect, because your ships now have to have docking collars extra sensors, and extra maneuvering capability. The rendezvous will take extra time and fuel, and the extra time means you need more life support for the crew.

Worse, the extra steps involved create extra risk, both for mission failure and to the lives of the crew. You could get to your fuel depot and discover the battery sytem has failed and your depot is tumbling, or a leak caused ice buildup that prevents you from docking. Or the chillers failed and enough oxydizer got vented into space that you can't continue the mission.

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