SpaceX Crewed Dragon Circumlunar Mission

[whitelancer64]

If you want to go to Mars, there's a step which is unwise to be skipped. I'm talking, of course, about the Moon.

If you want to go to Mars, then the Moon is an expensive and unnecessary distraction. Just go to Mars.

[envy887]

Falcon Heavy took about 5 years longer than promised to happen. I fully expect the much harder BFR/BFS to be as much as ten years late.
...

FH was hard, yes. But it was delayed mainly because SpaceX was focused on other projects (3 versions of F9, Dragon, Crew Dragon). SpaceX can do BFR faster by not having other development projects.

[tdperk]

only after Dragon 2 was gutted so much during development, especially during the CCDev program, that it was abandoned

What else do you have wrong?, you should wonder.  It is not abandoned at all.  In fact, solely the propulsive landing was cancelled.

Musk said the development of BFR is moving along quickly. Well, I don't believe it.

You are free not to.

Well, they can't build that powerpoint rocket without NASA and public funds. Just can't. They succeeded in building Falcon Heavy, but in order to cut costs, they are using two flight-proven boosters.

It won't work again with BFR, which is a brand new rocket.

It was always the plan (after the unneeded F5 was cancelled) to have the side boosters be as similar as possible to the F9 center core--they were going to be F9 for about the last what, 7 years now?

It cost them $400mn to develop the FH, and in that time they also developed the Block 5 F9.  FH and F9b5 let them earn about $400mn per year at least just from launches.  They have the money to build the BFR system.

Will there be a market for BFR rocket? Who will buy it?

Anyone who wants access to space will gladly buy a ride on the cheapest launcher available.  Possibly a fully re-usable smallsat launcher could undercut them on cost for LEO only very small payloads.

And as mentioned, the satellite internet constellation needs lofting and maintenance.  For that matter the competing constellation operators may well find SpaceX is their bet for lifting their birds.

[hkultala]

So what? The Russians and NASA dropped many many more promising plans than SpaceX. I propose the measurement of greatness should be how much actual progress has been made, not how many plans are dropped. (BTW, how is any of these related to "amazing peopleism" is beyond me...)

It's good that you mentioned NASA and the Russians. While NASA didn't have anything besides the Shuttle, it was believed that Russia is able to send humans beyond LEO faster. Because of a heavy launch vehicle (Proton) + spacecraft that's ready (Soyuz) + an escape stage. You have the launch vehicle, you have the spacecraft - just add a reinforced heat shield and make the stage, and you're ready.

Talk about using proton for manned launch is pure fantasy.

1) Proton is not a man-rated launched and will NEVER be. Russians are never going to put humans on board a rocket which is mainly using hypergolic fuels

2) Even if they would ignore all the safety considerations, they simply do not have a launch pad to launch humans on a proton.

3) You don't just plug in a "reinforced heat shield" into soyuz. Space capsules are not legoes.

This was how you were supposed to send tourists to the Moon. SpaceX was to use a Falcon Heavy rocket and Dragon.

Don't get me wrong - what SpaceX is doing with regards to reusability and launch vehicles is very important. They're now an important factor of the launch market. However, launch vehicles can take you only that far. You still need to decide what you're going to do with these launch vehicles and whether you have the will to do it. Jumping from one launch vehicle to another and then to another doesn't seem wise.

Sending a car with a test dummy to Mars is one thing. But are we serious about sending humans beyond LEO? This questions needs to be answered. Public stunts won't send you to Mars.. or the Moon... or even to LEO.

Developing both human-rated capsule with a good heat shield and human-rated heavy lifter and a launch site which can operate both will. SpaceX is doing exactly all the things that allow human missions higher than LEO


Russians, on the other hand, are only launching humans into LEO on the rockets and capsules Korolev designed some 60 years ago, and drawing new powerpoint rocket and capsule plans every two years.

Angara 1.1, Angara-3, Angara-7, Angara-5P, Soyuz-3, Rus-M, Kliper, what happened to you?

Soyuz-5/Soyuz-7, Angara-5P, Angara-5V, Proton Light, Proton Medium, Yenisei-5, Federatsiya, has any of these yet progressed from powerpoint stage?

[hkultala]

Falcon Heavy was never intended to fly humans. Sticking a Crew Dragon on top for tourist missions to the Moon is a distraction. It requires mods to Falcon Heavy that were not originally intended to be part of the FH design. As such they add cost to the FH system and ties up engineering capability where those engineers really should be working on the actual Mars system (BFR/BFS). So, it is a distraction.

What mods are you talking about?

AFAIK FH was always meant to be similar enought to F9 that it can trivially be used to fly humans when F9 has been developed to fly humans.

It was discussed in another thread that Crew Dragon is a technological dead-end once it is flying.

Crew dragon is a vehicle that earns SpaceX money to develop BFS.

And it's not a complete dead end. There are many aspects that help manned BFS development in crew dragon; life support, docking systems, flight controls, seas, space suits etc.

Doing away with systems and architectures that have served their purpose but are no longer useful to SpaceX is part of what SpaceX is all about. There are plenty of examples: Falcon 1, Falcon 9 v1.0, Falcon 9 v1.1, Grasshopper, DragonLab, Red Dragon, Merlin 1A, Merlin 1C, Kestrel, Cargo Dragon (will be retired once the CRS-1 obligations have been met). Etc, etc.

Grashopper was always a prototype/research vehicle, never a product. Stupid to use it as an example.
And Merlin 1A->1D was just evolution fo the engine design. Of course they replace the old version with the new version..

Same can be said about the F9 evolution.

The only really abandoned thing here is F1.

[OxCartMark]

My thought when I heard Elon's comment that FH wasn't going to be man rated (whatever that means)...

His statement of not man rating it can be combined with his statement that FH obsoletes other super heavy competition to mean that he's now so confident that congress will stop funding SLS after (assuming) a FH demo flight or two that he's not going to fund man rating FH, he's betting on the U.S. government to come to his door begging for (and paying for) SpaceX to man rate FH.

[woods170]

Respectfully, I disagree.

There was nothing promising about either Red Dragon or Lunar Dragon.

Red Dragon was always going to be a platform kit-bashed to do unmanned landings on Mars. From day 1 of the Red Dragon proposal it was clear that it would take a different spacecraft to actually land humans on Mars. As such, Red Dragon was mostly a distraction, courtesy of SpaceX involvement in the Commercial Crew Program. At best it would have replicated science that has already been done on Mars by NASA.

That's just flatly wrong. And it's a perfect example of why such apologetics won't work. Initially it wasn't about BFR. BFR as a plan was embraced by Musk only after Dragon 2 was gutted so much during development, especially during the CCDev program, that it was abandoned. But initially it was Dragon advertised as the interplanetary spacecraft, outfitted with retro-rockets and capable of landing on any planetary bodies.

No, in fact you are flat-out wrong. SpaceX in general, and Elon Musk in general, has been working on BFR/BFS for a long time. Initial design-work began long before Red Dragon was cancelled.
Proof for this is in L2 where hints for BFR/BFS had been popping-up at least 3 years before the 2016 IAC reveal of ITS. Mind you, propulsive landing wasn't cut from Crew Dragon until late 2016.

Another point where you are flat-out wrong is about Crew Dragon being the interplanetary spacecraft. It was to be the UNMANNED interplanetary spacecraft. Crew Dragon never was capable of putting a crew on the Moon and leave again, let alone doing the same on Mars.  One way trips only. And thus always planned to be unmanned, like Red Dragon. Only manned flights of the Crew Dragon architecture are LEO-and-back.

[woods170]

If you want to go to Mars, there's a step which is unwise to be skipped. I'm talking, of course, about the Moon.

That is your personal opinion, and it is not supported by facts.

[Svetoslav]

No, in fact you are flat-out wrong. SpaceX in general, and Elon Musk in general, has been working on BFR/BFS for a long time. Initial design-work began long before Red Dragon was cancelled.
Proof for this is in L2 where hints for BFR/BFS had been popping-up at least 3 years before the 2016 IAC reveal of ITS. Mind you, propulsive landing wasn't cut from Crew Dragon until late 2016.

Everybody relies on data he has access to. I'll get a L2 access, hopefully in the near future. But I admit - I may have missed certain information due to that.

[envy887]

Respectfully, I disagree.

There was nothing promising about either Red Dragon or Lunar Dragon.

Red Dragon was always going to be a platform kit-bashed to do unmanned landings on Mars. From day 1 of the Red Dragon proposal it was clear that it would take a different spacecraft to actually land humans on Mars. As such, Red Dragon was mostly a distraction, courtesy of SpaceX involvement in the Commercial Crew Program. At best it would have replicated science that has already been done on Mars by NASA.

That's just flatly wrong. And it's a perfect example of why such apologetics won't work. Initially it wasn't about BFR. BFR as a plan was embraced by Musk only after Dragon 2 was gutted so much during development, especially during the CCDev program, that it was abandoned. But initially it was Dragon advertised as the interplanetary spacecraft, outfitted with retro-rockets and capable of landing on any planetary bodies.

No, in fact you are flat-out wrong. SpaceX in general, and Elon Musk in general, has been working on BFR/BFS for a long time. Initial design-work began long before Red Dragon was cancelled.
Proof for this is in L2 where hints for BFR/BFS had been popping-up at least 3 years before the 2016 IAC reveal of ITS. Mind you, propulsive landing wasn't cut from Crew Dragon until late 2016.

Another point where you are flat-out wrong is about Crew Dragon being the interplanetary spacecraft. It was to be the UNMANNED interplanetary spacecraft. Crew Dragon never was capable of putting a crew on the Moon and leave again, let alone doing the same on Mars.  One way trips only. And thus always planned to be unmanned, like Red Dragon. Only manned flights of the Crew Dragon architecture are LEO-and-back.

I've never seen any SpaceX plans for crewed landings with Dragon on any planetary body, or for crewed flights anywhere beyond cislunar space. They were always going to build a larger crewed ship for interplanetary flights. First it was the MCT, then ITS, then BFS.

However, I don't know how much "working on the design" is a useful metric for progress. The design has changed frequently, and I don't know that even now it's stable enough to go through the SpaceX equivalent of a PDR.

But SpaceX HAS been working on the fundamental technologies for BFS for a very long time. Raptor work started over 5 years ago, PICA-X at least 5 years before that. They have been working on LOX-compatible composite structures for some 13 years. Precision VTVL flight, supersonic retropropulsion, engine and structure refurbishment and reuse, deep space avionics, long duration ECLSS, and many more key technologies all have heritage in Falcon and Dragon.

[llanitedave]

No, in fact you are flat-out wrong. SpaceX in general, and Elon Musk in general, has been working on BFR/BFS for a long time. Initial design-work began long before Red Dragon was cancelled.
Proof for this is in L2 where hints for BFR/BFS had been popping-up at least 3 years before the 2016 IAC reveal of ITS. Mind you, propulsive landing wasn't cut from Crew Dragon until late 2016.

Everybody relies on data he has access to. I'll get a L2 access, hopefully in the near future. But I admit - I may have missed certain information due to that.

Which is a good lesson in making sure you do have your facts prior to making emphatic claims about what is and is not possible.  Otherwise, you send your credibility straight down the tubes.

[Svetoslav]

Which is a good lesson in making sure you do have your facts prior to making emphatic claims about what is and is not possible.  Otherwise, you send your credibility straight down the tubes.

I don't think that's a big problem.

1. I'm a biologist. I know the time to retract my claim when new and previously unaccessible information is presented to me. In the future, I will correct this, get the access to L2 and have more basis for my claims. It's not the end of the world if someone has more information than me. I won't cry because of that. Rather, I'll be happy to learn something new and move on.

2. I'm not a politician. Politicians care too much about their reputation, their belief systems and when new information contradicts what they believe in, they have to find another facts fitting into their world view. The option to retract claims is a virtue for those who conduct research.

3. I may be wrong for what is or not possible. Okay. But my basic claim was something different - entrepreneurs who give ambitions schedules they fail to meet, or cancel projects, are not doing a good favor to the society. I already wrote about that in New Shepard's thread. It crushes hopes. In the end, it's not important whether I'm wrong, as I'm not that famous. But it is important when a famous person promises something and fails to deliver.   

[Lar]

Guys...

On topic factor is low.
Squabble factor is high.

Work on those  numbers or the thread will be scrubbed...

[envy887]

This isn't a BFR thread...

The mistake people make is comparing BFR development to FH

You're right.

BFR is more complex in every way except one

Wrong. BFR is much simpler than FH. BFS is a bit more complex, but that's why they are doing it first.

and it has even less of a need to exist than FH.

Also wrong. SpaceX's raison d'être is to transport humans to Mars and back. Falcon Heavy cannot transport humans to Mars and back. BFR/BFS can. To SpaceX, that is not just a reason, but the very exact reason they exist.

How many times did Musk say "We are going to finish development work shortly on everything else and focus all our energy on Falcon Heavy"? Never. Yet he says that all the time about BFR/BFS. Why do you think that is?

[the_other_Doug]

There are no sellable missions that currently exist that cannot be served by F9 and FH, so by definition BFR has no reason to exist besides speculation.

I'm gonna let others shoot down your bullet points.  This one I couldn't pass up.

The reason BFR/BFS has to exist is that SpaceX wants to make the human race interplanetary, and thus want to create a transportation system capable of moving thousands of people (or more) to Mars in just a few decades.  That is what the BFR/BFS is.

You can have whatever conclusion you like about whether they will be able to pull that off or not.  But there can be no speculation as to the one, sole reason why SpaceX exists, and why it wants to build the BFR/BFS.  That reason is extremely well documented.

And it ain't to launch comsats.

[Robotbeat]

...
There are no sellable missions that currently exist that cannot be served by F9 and FH, so by definition ...

Nope.

[envy887]

This isn't a BFR thread...

The mistake people make is comparing BFR development to FH

You're right.

BFR is more complex in every way except one

Wrong. BFR is much simpler than FH. BFS is a bit more complex, but that's why they are doing it first.

and it has even less of a need to exist than FH.

Also wrong. SpaceX's raison d'être is to transport humans to Mars and back. Falcon Heavy cannot transport humans to Mars and back. BFR/BFS can. To SpaceX, that is not just a reason, but the very exact reason they exist.

How many times did Musk say "We are going to finish development work shortly on everything else and focus all our energy on Falcon Heavy"? Never. Yet he says that all the time about BFR/BFS. Why do you think that is?

Everything about BFR is more complex:
-more propellant, larger pad, faster propellant loading
-much more difficult engines, higher pressures, difficult cycle, many more engines on both stages
-difficult and brittle structural material that has been the bane of many past aerospace projects
-more difficult landing, landing puts the entire pad at risk
-reentry at 5-8 times the speeds of F9S1, and it's supposed to be "more easily refurbishable" in spite of that
-new pad/landing facilities needed rather than using existing infrastructure
-new pressurization/thruster system rather than what was used for F9
-new factory needed just to build it
-BFS has to be qualified in the same way as Dragon 2 or it will never get government support
-also would be the largest rocket ever built
I don't see how FH being multi-core is somehow more difficult than all of these things.

There are no sellable missions that currently exist that cannot be served by F9 and FH, so by definition BFR has no reason to exist besides speculation.

Reply here

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=43920.0

[envy887]

How many tickets to Mars were sold this year?

Where can I buy a ticket to Mars? No reputable operator is selling them, since there is not yet a viable means to fulfill them.

SpaceX sold tickets for a circumlunar flight (Oh, hi! There's the topic!). Probably a couple hundred million dollars worth of tickets. They have a viable means to complete that mission.

[MATTBLAK]

If Musk says that there is no longer a plan to man-rate the Falcon Heavy, then there's still a chance that the Circumlunar mission could occur. The Dragon with the crew could be placed into a parking orbit by a reusable Falcon 9, Block 5. And the next day; a Falcon Heavy in reusable mode could place an upper stage with a docking collar on top of it and more than 30 tons of propellant left in that upper stage. The Dragon with crew could then rendezvous and dock with that upper stage, and carry out the mission more or less as outlined more than a year ago. I discussed earlier in the thread the prospect of using 2x expended Falcon 9 Block 5's to do the mission - someone crunched the numbers and said it could almost work, delta-v wise. If the delta-v requirement was partially handed out to the Dragon; could the Draco propellant supply be increased without any major redesign?

Could the Trunk be equipped with a 'propulsion pallet' consisting of a cluster of ordinary Dracos and a couple tons of hypergolics? Possible - but such a thing is on nobody's design budget or priority. It would give Dragon some excellent, increased future capabilities, though!!

[FishInferno]

The Dragon with the crew could be placed into a parking orbit by a reusable Falcon 9, Block 5. And the next day; a Falcon Heavy in reusable mode could place an upper stage with a docking collar on top of it and more than 30 tons of propellant left in that upper stage. The Dragon with crew could then rendezvous and dock with that upper stage, and carry out the mission more or less as outlined more than a year ago.

An easier way may be to launch on a crewed F9, then launch another (unmanned) Dragon 2 on Falcon Heavy. Crewed Dragon docks with uncrewed Dragon + FH upper stage and the crew transfers to the second Dragon. Eliminates the need to build a single-purpose docking collar and does away with any uncertainties related to burning with D2 only attached via a docking port.