SpaceX Crewed Dragon Circumlunar Mission

[Chris Bergin]

I don't want to see any posts about gender, faith or skin color of the private astros (I mean, come on!). Those reported have been removed. Please report any the mods have missed!

[Kharkov]

Elon Musk & SpaceX have, AFAIK, been careful not to insult, mock, or generally diss SLS. They don't want to annoy NASA, or those Senators & Congressmen pushing SLS. Also, doing so gains them nothing or very little while feeding the 'anti-SpaceX' types.

That said, it's hard to believe that Musk/SpaceX think SLS is any good. A big, expensive, rarely-flying rocket would seem, to a proponent of cheap, frequently flying rockets, to be a bad idea.

Hence this Lunar Tourism (Or 'Once Around the Moon' Tourism). What better way to put a knife in the back of SLS without leaving any obvious fingerprints? The trip will get the whole world's attention, not just the U.S.. The news reports are bound to say, loudly, clearly and repeatedly, the cost as a whole, and per tourist.

SLS, whatever its advantages, is not likely to look good in comparison. Falcon Heavy will have a famous trip PRIOR to SLS's first mission - a (probably) unmanned mission, at a probably-reported-as-a-high price, right AFTER SpaceX does the same thing for (probably but almost certainly reported as) a lot less money.

Political support for SLS may vanish quicker than ice cubes in a Texas summer..

[montyrmanley]

Why the announcement now??

But really, this may be Musk's way of positioning his company as something more than a cheap ride into LEO for NASA. If he can show that the FH/Dragon2 stack is as capable as SLS/Orion in cislunar space for short missions, and for a much lower total cost, that's a pretty big motivator for Congress and the President to decide of SLS is worth the continued development cost or not.

(Chris Edit: Naughty word masked is still a naughty word. I don't want 5 page letter of complaints from parents! )

[ZachF]

Well.

This quite possibly explains the request to see about putting crew on EM-1.  I doubt this came as a surprise to the President.  I would not want to be the briefer who has to give the EM-1 report.

I'd say this is typically audacious for Musk, but it's more.  There are a lot of things that have to move into place for this to happen, obviously.  But if it happens, it strikes me as the most significant event in space development since STS-1. It's a high stakes gamble that opens up cislunar space in one swoop.  One giant leap, indeed.

What does this mean for NASA HSF?   I obviously don't know.  What I do suspect is that the status quo for SLS is off the table now.  It will probably take a year or two to really shake out, and seriously nasty political battles, but I don't know how the current slow, expensive, vague plans will be able to deal with a successful Dragon flight to the moon.

I'm almost 50, and don't remember the moon landings.  I might not live long enough to see people back on the moon, but with a little luck, I may get to see *privately funded* missions around it.

Yeah, a $billions per launch SLS is going to be really hard to keep alive if SpaceX is launching tourists around the moon for a couple hundred million or a pop.

[Chris Bergin]

Fascinating. I jumped on late, expecting to find the NSF servers on fire. I'm not disappointed.

They were humming at a SpaceX launch level, especially when Elon didn't keep to his schedule.

The servers cope as we've been improving the packages every year to cope, paid for via our great supporters who are L2 subscribers. I have a Google Analytics page which is a live view of site visitation (very cool tool Mark set up for me) and these days we're cope with some really big peaks. Just a few years ago we'd be removing guests and worrying about "Bad Gateway" errors at 20 percent of the demand we were at around 1pm Pacific today.

Anyway! Moving on!

[gospacex]

What makes me glum is not rich people doing something interesting - it's that we need rich folks, volunteers, or both, to get this stuff done in the first place.  Why should it be Rotary that's trying to get rid of polio?  Why does it take Gates to attack malaria?  Why do we need a few rich private customers to finance BEO technology?  What is a government for, if not to do those projects that are both difficult and useful?

Unfortunately, government is quite inefficient in everything it does.
It only makes sense to use government programs for things which are useful *and currently unprofitable*. When done by government, such programs still run the risk of being done inefficiently (sometimes awfully so), but at least they would be done. Scientific probes to other planets and space telescopes are good examples.

[butters]

Does this mean that the Falcon Heavy demo mission is likely an unmanned lunar free return with a Dragon 1?

Or would there be a third FH launch after STP-2 but before the human lunar mission?

Or would they really launch a Dragon on a lunar free return trajectory for the first time with people onboard??

[Space Ghost 1962]

I'm somehow glum about this announcement. [...] This hurts and makes me a bit angry. People with extreme amounts of money are yet again able to buy their way though life.

Am I alone in this?

What makes me glum is not rich people doing something interesting - it's that we need rich folks, volunteers, or both, to get this stuff done in the first place.

Let me refine your thesis. Everyone needs to get what they can get done, done. Couldn't agree with that more.

Here's the fly in the ointment. It takes resources to get anything worthwhile done, and you need to coordinate/cooperate/lead to do so. Now the argument for what to do, when to do it, and how to do it ... begins.

The thesis of "little/no government" shifts everything it can to the private sector. But ... to "lead" you'd better be accomplished like a Bezos/Gates/Musk/... to be able to play any of these games. Because you are in effect a government onto your own.

That's not how our govt and its institutions have ever or will ever work, so there are bounds.

Why should it be Rotary that's trying to get rid of polio? Why does it take Gates to attack malaria?  Why do we need a few rich private customers to finance BEO technology?  What is a government for, if not to do those projects that are both difficult and useful?

Good question. Because your average citizen isn't broadminded enough to consider it worth doing. And the dearth of great leaders to advocate for seemingly unpopular ideas, because of longer term yield ... aren't there to do so. And at the moment they don't seem to be desired. That is your answer.

It wasn't always so. It might not always be. Generally, when something horrible happens ... suddenly things change.

Like, say, this little beeping sphere goes by in the sky, after witnessing the dawn of a nuclear age. "Gee, you know something else could be there instead of that beeping thing, perhaps it could hurt me ..."

Human nature.

[knowles2]

Space tourism is a side show. I hope these stunt persons paid full price for this. Seems to have little upside and many possible pitfalls. This make SpaceX seem less serious.

Matthew

If Space X seriously hopes to send people to Mars in 2020s, then showing they can do a fly by of the moon with normal people seems like a great idea to me. Especially if they can get some volunteers willing to pay for it.

I think the idea of NASA getting priority on these missions make me take Space X a lot less seriously.

[meekGee]

Space tourism is a side show. I hope these stunt persons paid full price for this. Seems to have little upside and many possible pitfalls. This make SpaceX seem less serious.

Matthew

If Space X seriously hopes to send people to Mars in 2020s, then showing they can do a fly by of the moon with normal people seems like a great idea to me. Especially if they can get some volunteers willing to pay for it.

I think the idea of NASA getting priority on these missions make me take Space X a lot less seriously.

'twas obligatory politeness.

And it doesn't mean they won't fly the private parties anyway.

[Jim]

Please stop calling them tourists. They are not. I'd call them adventurers, explorers, something like that. Not tourists. They are not going to turn up and go, like a tourist would.

They are tourists.  They are on an automated vehicle, and just are going along for the ride.

[mark_m]

Space tourism is a side show. I hope these stunt persons paid full price for this. Seems to have little upside and many possible pitfalls. This make SpaceX seem less serious.

Matthew

If Space X seriously hopes to send people to Mars in 2020s, then showing they can do a fly by of the moon with normal people seems like a great idea to me. Especially if they can get some volunteers willing to pay for it.

I think the idea of NASA getting priority on these missions make me take Space X a lot less seriously.

'twas obligatory politeness.

And it doesn't mean they won't fly the private parties anyway.

Yes, and as they mentioned in their press release, NASA provided a majority of the funding for the development of Dragon 2. Given their long working relationship, if NASA is willing to pay for a seat, giving them priority seems not only polite but reasonable to me.

[meekGee]

The "tourist/explorer" discussion belongs in the Pluto-is-isn't-a-planet thread.

[montyrmanley]

Please stop calling them tourists. They are not. I'd call them adventurers, explorers, something like that. Not tourists. They are not going to turn up and go, like a tourist would.

They are tourists.  They are on an automated vehicle, and just are going along for the ride.

Was Yuri Gagarin just a tourist, then? The Vostok 1 spacecraft was automated to a large degree, or controlled from the ground....

[Space Ghost 1962]

Or would they really launch a Dragon on a lunar free return trajectory for the first time with people onboard??

Isn't NASA considering an even less flight proven vehicle ... for same?

[punder]

Please stop calling them tourists. They are not. I'd call them adventurers, explorers, something like that. Not tourists. They are not going to turn up and go, like a tourist would.

They are tourists.  They are on an automated vehicle, and just are going along for the ride.

Yeah Jim, but if the Pirates of the Carribean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists.

[mainmind]

Space tourism is a side show. I hope these stunt persons paid full price for this. Seems to have little upside and many possible pitfalls. This make SpaceX seem less serious.

Matthew

If Space X seriously hopes to send people to Mars in 2020s, then showing they can do a fly by of the moon with normal people seems like a great idea to me. Especially if they can get some volunteers willing to pay for it.

I think the idea of NASA getting priority on these missions make me take Space X a lot less seriously.

Musk has been pretty clear about two things: 1) he wants to put people on Mars 2) he'll use whatever mechanisms he can to fund the company that can make that happen, e.g. commercial satellite launches, delivering cargo to ISS, delivering crew to ISS, (potentially) creating global satellite internet constellation. A couple people with deep enough pockets came to him and said "Hey, it looks like you could put us in the history books with a mission we can afford and you have the tech for. Can we buy a lift?" and he said yes because they were willing to pay enough to generate a profit for item (1) above. If he's really smart, SpaceX will be doing it without delaying any other plans. Time will tell.

Regarding the SLS/EM1(2) vs. FH/DV2 round-the-moon argument: SLS block 1 still gets more payload to orbit per launch than FH. Per wikipedia, SLS block 1 starts at 70 metric tons to LEO; FH is at 54 mT. SLS has an evolution path to 130 mT per launch. Yes, there are cost-per-kg considerations, but also pad issues with performing multiple launches from a single pad, as mentioned up-thread. All I'm arguing is that SLS could have a useful place in BEO exploration because it can loft so much mass at once, and Orion can have a place, as well, because of its design to support more crew on long duration missions than the announced SpX sortie. Currently, neither the SLS architecture, nor SpaceX, possesses to utilize their assets beyond direct-return lunar fly-by is either a) deep-space long-duration habitats or b) lunar ascent/descent stages and lunar surface habitats.

If NASA is redirected by Congress or the White House to Lunar missions, some company will still be tasked with developing assets (a) and (b), and the status of the SLS will determine what mass allocation they have to work with. SLS isn't automatically dead because SpaceX can recreate (preemptively) the EM-2 mission profile.

If SpaceX can pull this off, kudos to them. It's a win for human space exploration, and US expertise. If more customers come forward to further pad SpaceX's bottom line, good for them. I hope they enjoy the trip.

One question - do any thermal engineers here worry that the Dragon V2 won't have the radiator capacity to properly regulate the temperature of the capsule when it isn't enjoying eclipse and the shade of the Earth 40% of its time in orbit? The artists' concepts of what the DV2 looks like in orbit doesn't appear to have much in the way of radiators and it was originally (?) designed for LEO operations. Are the fins the radiators? Will the barbecue roll be enough, or will additional equipment pointing or extending out of the trunk be required.

[meekGee]

The "tourist/explorer" discussion belongs in the Pluto-is-isn't-a-planet thread.

The matter is irrelevant. Except to Musk - the distinction will help him differentiate his business from Bezos/Branson, to the tune of  $100B of private equity financing, over 40 years.

They are tourists. But EM-2 is not much more, and at least there is some return on the investment to do the mission.

Side thought:  does this undercut the existing "space tourism" businesses? Because everyone waits for the bigger ride? Does everyone sell of their holdings ... oops.

Better question for all of you: What HSF mission can be done - that can be clearly and unambiguously classed as "not a tourist" mission, well out of LEO?

In either case, their names would go into the history books alongside Apollo astros, irrespective of "tourist".

This might eat the orbital tourism business, mostly because it has a destination... 

Suborbital will remain since it's a different price point, but it's funny to see that having started at about the same time, SpaceX is going to fly around the moon at about the same time that others are going to fly 100 km parabolas.

[pb2000]

What is the deal with all the negativity regarding this flight having private citizens? SpaceX sells rocket launch services, and 2 people with the financial means decided to buy that service and instead buying a comsat to go on top, they are buying a crew capsule and asking to go along for the ride.

The flight will undoubtedly return a massive amount of data and if the margins allow, a whole bunch of bleeding edge stuff can be jammed into the corners and trunk to do science without the usual aerospace design requirements.

Who knows, maybe the mysterious customers will turn out to have a scientific or engineering background, and can actually do experiments themselves on the trip.

For the people who are just whining about obscenely rich people; keep in mind that a good chunk of the proceeds for this mission will be paid out to employees of spaceX, industry suppliers, and funding of ITS. How is that not a good thing?

[Lumina]

Well.

This quite possibly explains the request to see about putting crew on EM-1.  I doubt this came as a surprise to the President.  I would not want to be the briefer who has to give the EM-1 report.

I'd say this is typically audacious for Musk, but it's more.  There are a lot of things that have to move into place for this to happen, obviously.  But if it happens, it strikes me as the most significant event in space development since STS-1. It's a high stakes gamble that opens up cislunar space in one swoop.  One giant leap, indeed.

What does this mean for NASA HSF?   I obviously don't know.  What I do suspect is that the status quo for SLS is off the table now.  It will probably take a year or two to really shake out, and seriously nasty political battles, but I don't know how the current slow, expensive, vague plans will be able to deal with a successful Dragon flight to the moon.

I'm almost 50, and don't remember the moon landings.  I might not live long enough to see people back on the moon, but with a little luck, I may get to see *privately funded* missions around it.

I think this is just the beginning. Not sure how many FH launches and/or new hardware may be needed, but if the 2018 flight makes history, what or who is to stop Elon Musk from shooting for a manned Moon landing as his next move?

The space frontier really seems to be opening up, whether we are ready for it or not. About time, too. The 24th December of 2018 - next year!! - will be the 50th anniversary of the Earthrise picture taken from Apollo 8.