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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

#91

Post by edsouza »

ktta wrote: post #12

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

The two private citizens will need a support team in capsule unless they are experienced astronauts and have the technical skills to learn all the systems on the dragon crew capsule.

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

#92

Post by mburns »

skizm wrote: post #79

Is 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.

>A 2005 study Jennings co-authored counted 17 babies born to female astronauts after they had been in space.

https://phys.org/news/2011-01-sex-space-houston-problem.html

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

#94

Post by gleenn »

dwringer wrote: post #28
suprgeek wrote: post #15

While this feat depends on hitting a lot of intermediate milestones - Falcon Heavy Test, Crew Dragon Unmanned to ISS, Crew Dragon manned to ISS, etc, there is no "show-stopper" that is apparent right now. I like how they have avoided committing to the much harder "landing on the Moon and then return" scenario.

We choose to not go to the moon, but do the other things, not because they are hard, but because they are relatively easy, and we can make a quick buck.

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

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

#95

Post by hackuser »

marcofloriano wrote: post #37
davidklemke wrote: post #26

Absolutely incredible. This will be the furthest that humanity has journeyed away from Earth in a very long time. However it is worth noting that there hasn't been a single crewed Dragon flight yet. There are demonstator flights scheduled for this year though with the first NASA crewed mission slated for May 2018. That's an incredibly aggressive timeline but if anyone can achieve it, SpaceX can. The long duration fli…

> That's an incredibly aggressive timeline Sometimes i wonder if that's an strategy from the management team to put pressure in the engineers.

> Sometimes i wonder if that's an strategy from the management team to put pressure in the engineers.

Or simply a way to generate press and attention, including on Hacker News.

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

#96

Post by nickik »

gravypod wrote: post #75
nickik wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Landing on the moon to "test" the Mars landing makes almost no sense. The a moon is just to different, landing on mars can be trained much better on Earth or on Mars itself. The simuliertes are not enough to make it sensible if you don't have another reason to land on the moon too.

There's gravity and a rock. Ignoring all the differences these still two extremely hard things to solve first before you start thinking of anything else.

Sure, if you ignore all the other problems. Why not fly to the Venus and test there? Why not on Saturn? The reason is simple, the cost of doing so outweighs the benefits of doing so.

Look, its simply almost as expensive to make such a test on the moon, as it is on mars. If mars is your goal, then testing on the moon makes absolutely no sense.

People seem to believe that because the moon is closer, it means its much easier there. The reality is that the deltaV is not that different, plus mars gives nice tools to actually land, like an atmosphere.

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

#97

Post by ntumlin »

skizm wrote: post #79

Is 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.

According to stack exchange, it doesn't [0]. If that's wrong maybe I can fund a trip to space of my own by selling lead lined boxers.

[0] http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/14704/do-astronauts...

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

#98

Post by coryfklein »

solidr53 wrote: post #41
runesoerensen wrote: post #5

> We are excited to announce that SpaceX has been approached to fly two private citizens on a trip around the moon late next year. They have already paid a significant deposit to do a moon mission. Can't wait to hear who booked this trip! Definitely one of the coolest ways to spend a lot of superfluous money :)

Same! I also think that spending money on a roundtrip to the moon is way better for humanity than spending it on champagne, caviar and cars.

Not sure everyone will see it that way. One could look at it as taking the whole "wasteful private jet" to the extreme. Think of the sheer amount of fuel burned in the earth's atmosphere so a rich guy can fly in space.

At least, I expect many will spin it that way.

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

#100

Post by hsod »

gleenn wrote: post #94
dwringer wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We choose to not go to the moon, but do the other things, not because they are hard, but because they are relatively easy, and we can make a quick buck.

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.
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