I doubt any funds liberated from SLS will go to NASA.
I think SLS will be cancelled. It's a waste of money given the new commercial alternatives coming online.
Quote from: corneliussulla on 03/01/2017 06:54 amIt appears to me the likely scenario here is that Musk is looking at all ways to increase SpaceX income so he can afford ITS development. Along come a couple guys willing to pay $80 mill each lets say to live out a dream. Musk thinks if I could sell a mission like this twice a year I would have $120 mill (guesstimate) a year to get things moving on ITS. This is probably worth delaying the red dragon programmeHe knows this will have political implications for NASA and SLS. He privately probably thinks SLS is a load of nonsense but doesn't want to embarrass NASA so he lets the administration know what he is up to. This sets alarm bells off at NASA and they come up with daft idea of first mission of SLS being manned ( meanwhile falcon design must be frozen and flown 7 times) and maybe ask Musk to delay announcement until they announce There moon mission which he did.It's hard to know the exact events but Elon needs cash to get ITS done and he is not a guy who will wait around for NASA/ congress to change its mind on SLS. Once falcon is frozen and dragon certified he might be able to spend all surplus from satellite launch and ISS servicing missions on ITS development. Lets say that $200 mill a year plus moon tourists at $100 mill a year. Budget for ITS could be $3 billion over 10 years to 2028. Things are not static of course but hard to see that budget being enough to develop ITS when a Nimitz class carrier costs $13 bill and they already have the plans. Elon is going to have to come up with some more ideas or get administration and NASA fired up about his vision of Mars to get An ITS on Mars by end of 2020ies, maybe his other ventures will start throwing shed loads of cash in coming years because he probably needs between 4 to 10 times the resources Available from spacex to get this job done.When you think about it, everything Musk done since 2001 (post- PayPal era) is geared to support Mars colonization someday. - Solar city = large solar arrays on Mars since Mars Direct nuclear pile is politically unacceptable - Tesla: electric Mars rovers, obviously - reusable rocket / capsules: Mars landers - Space internet, lunar tourists, NASA-COTS-CCDEV, military sats, competition with Arianespace: funding, funding, more funding. It is a two-prongue attack on Mars colonization: on one side, technology readiness, on the other, massive funding and dollars. Both developments are to work together and converge on Mars within the next decade.
It appears to me the likely scenario here is that Musk is looking at all ways to increase SpaceX income so he can afford ITS development. Along come a couple guys willing to pay $80 mill each lets say to live out a dream. Musk thinks if I could sell a mission like this twice a year I would have $120 mill (guesstimate) a year to get things moving on ITS. This is probably worth delaying the red dragon programmeHe knows this will have political implications for NASA and SLS. He privately probably thinks SLS is a load of nonsense but doesn't want to embarrass NASA so he lets the administration know what he is up to. This sets alarm bells off at NASA and they come up with daft idea of first mission of SLS being manned ( meanwhile falcon design must be frozen and flown 7 times) and maybe ask Musk to delay announcement until they announce There moon mission which he did.It's hard to know the exact events but Elon needs cash to get ITS done and he is not a guy who will wait around for NASA/ congress to change its mind on SLS. Once falcon is frozen and dragon certified he might be able to spend all surplus from satellite launch and ISS servicing missions on ITS development. Lets say that $200 mill a year plus moon tourists at $100 mill a year. Budget for ITS could be $3 billion over 10 years to 2028. Things are not static of course but hard to see that budget being enough to develop ITS when a Nimitz class carrier costs $13 bill and they already have the plans. Elon is going to have to come up with some more ideas or get administration and NASA fired up about his vision of Mars to get An ITS on Mars by end of 2020ies, maybe his other ventures will start throwing shed loads of cash in coming years because he probably needs between 4 to 10 times the resources Available from spacex to get this job done.
We can go back and forth forever on SLS, NASA's budget and those who set it, SpaceX's relationship with NASA, [/size]etc, but....How will SpaceX recover the crew from the mission around the moon?There are at least four possibilities:1) Proven parachute landing in the ocean2) SpaceX's undemonstrated propulsive landing on the Super Dracos3) Soyuz style propulsively assisted parachute landing in the dessert. 4) A drogue only descent with propulsive assist (not mentioned anywhere else that I know of.)There could be significant dispersion in the location of a splash-down. SpaceX will have to develop an water recovery operation adequate for crew recovery for Commercial Crew, if NASA doesn't change its demand, but they won't have enough assets to cover a large part of the ocean. Option 1 seems unlikely.Option 2 seems pretty far out there. Almost everything will have been proven, including Falcon Heavy, but not propulsive landing. Option 3 is my best guess. There is lots of area in the American southwest, and if the Dragon comes down 100 km off course, it's not likely to be a big problem. It was, IIRC, the landing method SpaceX wanted to use for Commercial Crew at the beginning, so they have already planed for it. They used to have plans to demonstrate this from a helicopter drop.Option 4 is my favorite, with option 3 as a backup. However, the strongest advantage of option 4 is that there would be much less drift under the parachutes, but that won't be the biggest source of landing point error when returning from the moon.
Question for Jim (other professionals feel free to chime in)Assume that I am a 45 year old lay person with some scientific acumen. Private practice doctor, former USAF flight doc, >1000 hours private pilot with instrument and aerobatic experience. Biology major with a little physics and math 25 years ago. Burning desire to fly in space since watching STS -1 in 4th grade. Assume I win Powerball and decide I want to purchase this trip free return around the moon with SpaceX.What are the five most important questions I should ask SpaceX management as part of my due diligence as I consider paying for this trip?
So anyone on board one of these things is a passenger (I think the word tourist is inappropriate), whether they are paid by SpaceX to be there or have paid to be there.
Quote from: JamesH65 on 03/01/2017 11:50 amSo anyone on board one of these things is a passenger (I think the word tourist is inappropriate), whether they are paid by SpaceX to be there or have paid to be there.A passenger that has no specific destination and is along for the ride and sightseeing is a tourist.Actually,Tourist: a person who is traveling or visiting a place for pleasure.
We don't know the political/funding consequences yet.What one should be concerned for is our good friends that might get caught up in a RIF as a consequence. Especially as it seems that govt funding might be across the board may get cut. Especially mid level GS. Who aren't in the greatest position to go elsewhere. At least that's my concern here.
Quote from: ChrisWilson68 on 02/28/2017 11:10 pmYou still haven't given any evidence. The timing of Musk's announcement relative to the EM-1 announcement could be coincidence. Or the EM-1 announcement could have been rushed to come before Musk's announcement, which the the opposite of the causal relationship you're claiming. Or the EM-1 announcement might have triggered the customers to do the deal with Musk. There are all kinds of possibilities. The truth is we just don't know.That's right, we don't know.All we have is Thiel in the administration, a sudden announcement by Musk, Bergin's source in NASA, and Yang and Berger's tweets about tonight. A lot of smoke. No point arguing whether or not we see flames.
You still haven't given any evidence. The timing of Musk's announcement relative to the EM-1 announcement could be coincidence. Or the EM-1 announcement could have been rushed to come before Musk's announcement, which the the opposite of the causal relationship you're claiming. Or the EM-1 announcement might have triggered the customers to do the deal with Musk. There are all kinds of possibilities. The truth is we just don't know.
In the email, Mr. Miller advocates that NASA “hold an internal competition between Old Space and New Space” to determine the best and least expensive way to return to the moon. “If this initiative can be approved quickly by the White House, and appropriately funded,” he said in the email, there could be “private American astronauts, on private space ships, circling the moon by 2020.”
Exactly, no controls for anyone to push, prod, twist or pull. So anyone in Dragon 2 is effectively a (well-heeled) passenger.But there *is* something that sets an astronaut apart from a "mere" space tourist: EVA.Ric
A passenger that has no specific destination and is along for the ride and sightseeing is a tourist.Actually,Tourist: a person who is traveling or visiting a place for pleasure.
If all these 'tourists' get out of it is a week of weightlessness, and peering at the Moon through the porthole, I think it would not be worth the money. Now, if they are trained to operate experiments located in the trunk it gets more interesting. And if there are cameras back there they would get a better view on their internal screens (Dragon 2 has great displays) than looking through a smudged window.