SpaceX Crewed Dragon Circumlunar Mission

[corneliussulla]

I think there is much more going on here than sending a couple folks round the moon

Elon Musk cannot get to Mars without some government funding. He has a president in place who whilst unpredictable is generally anti gov, pro business.

Musk is effectively going to do what NASA was planning to do a year or two later for a mission cost of $140 mill ish. A similar mission with SLS will cost $1 billion plus. However going forward if the side boosters on FH and the dragon2 can be reused for say 10 such missions u could be looking at SX selling such trips for $40-$50 mill( with profit for ITS dev) NASA will look ridiculous spending $ 1 billion plus on similar missions.

There is little doubt in my mind that Musk is trying to end NASA launch vehicle development by influencing the administration and showing just how ineffectual And wasteful the NASA launch manned vehicle development has been. This is not because he dislikes NASA, he just knows he can do that bit much better and cheaper than NASA. NASA could then spend its efforts developing space telescopes to image worlds around other stars and systems for use by There astronauts who SpaxeX deliver to moon or Mars.

 $ 20 billion since constellation and not a single man in orbit. I have little doubt if NASA put out contract to land people on Mars for half that money Musk would deliver the ITS which has capabilities beyond NASA wildest imaginings, remember bushs 41,s $400 billion plan to get to Mars. ITS comes in at somewhere between 2-5% of that and with much greater capability.

I hope Musk can end the SLS nonsense and NASA can get on with what it does best, great space science and Moon/Mars surface systems development. I believe that way we get further/faster

[ugordan]

If so, there is more than enough propellant for correction burns, just they will need to be done long and slow using Dracos. But it's not that different to some interplanetary probes using relatively small engines to enter orbit, with burns lasting many tens of minutes.

The CRS Dragon deorbit burns take, what, 6 minutes already? That's a non-issue for course-correction burns. The bigger issue I see is how are they going to perform deep space tracking and navigation in the first place in order to be able to *do* TCMs. Leasing NASA assets or is there some trivial way to do that in the absence of GPS in deep space?

Also an issue I can see right now is an unproved lunar reentry on the Dragon 2 mold line (Zond-like more than Apollo-like). Skip entry profile? Sidewall heating? Questions, questions...

[Star One]

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.

Can we keep the politics out of this and yes your statement is political.

Why should we keep politics out of this?

My statement is a political *fact*. The people who did not live in a system where government tries to fully control economy simply do not appreciate this fact enough. There may be thinking "here we go, free market apologist again with his mantra".

The thing is, the "mantra" is true. We are witnessing yet another example right now, with SpaceX vs SLS comparison.

Are you somehow expecting to make a statement on this and be unchallenged on it?

[Chris Bergin]

You guys can self moderate, as the above post chain showed such an attempt, but let's all remember these threads have X amount of people posting, but Y amount of people reading.

X may be a few hundred.
Y is many thousands.

You may think you're in a small conference room where only those people in the room are listening to what you have to say, but you're actually being televised around the world to a big audience. (Did you all like that analogy? )

Consider your post before submitting it. One strong post is better than one post and five follow ups because someone else on this planet happens to disagree with you. The audience will decide who has the best point.

[Port]

I think there is much more going on here than sending a couple folks round the moon

Elon Musk cannot get to Mars without some government funding. He has a president in place who whilst unpredictable is generally anti gov, pro business.

Musk is effectively going to do what NASA was planning to do a year or two later for a mission cost of $140 mill ish. A similar mission with SLS will cost $1 billion plus. However going forward if the side boosters on FH and the dragon2 can be reused for say 10 such missions u could be looking at SX selling such trips for $40-$50 mill( with profit for ITS dev) NASA will look ridiculous spending $ 1 billion plus on similar missions.

There is little doubt in my mind that Musk is trying to end NASA launch vehicle development by influencing the administration and showing just how ineffectual And wasteful the NASA launch manned vehicle development has been. This is not because he dislikes NASA, he just knows he can do that bit much better and cheaper than NASA. NASA could then spend its efforts developing space telescopes to image worlds around other stars and systems for use by There astronauts who SpaxeX deliver to moon or Mars.

 $ 20 billion since constellation and not a single man in orbit. I have little doubt if NASA put out contract to land people on Mars for half that money Musk would deliver the ITS which has capabilities beyond NASA wildest imaginings, remember bushs 41,s $400 billion plan to get to Mars. ITS comes in at somewhere between 2-5% of that and with much greater capability.

I hope Musk can end the SLS nonsense and NASA can get on with what it does best, great space science and Moon/Mars surface systems development. I believe that way we get further/faster

amen to that.

NASA's problem is that it is treated as a jobs- and electoral votes programm from the elected officials at certain states - which would be fine (not by me but hell, lets say i would care less) if it would not lead to absolutely abysmal results (creating engineering systems with constraints, never a good idea performance or price-wise).
if those 20B$ would have spent on science and research for propulsion instead of porking up aerospace giants to buy votes - just image what NASA could have already accomplished.

We have the same problem here with ESA and Airbus/Thales - bu we don't have SpaceX, take the chance you have been given, good things will happen IMO

[nacnud]

From the SpaceX press release.

"Falcon Heavy is due to launch its first test flight this summer and, once successful, will be the most powerful vehicle to reach orbit after the Saturn V moon rocket."

The people who write these need to do a bit more fact checking. The "most powerful vehicle to reach orbit after the Saturn V moon rocket" was Energia, with 35.1 MN of thrust. What Falcon Heavy will be is the fourth most powerful launch vehicle to reach orbit.

Energia        35.10 MN
Saturn V       33.85 MN
Space Shuttle  30.90 MN
Falcon Heavy   24.68 MN
Atlas V 551    12.27 MN
GSLV Mk.III    11.66 MN
Ariane 5       11.40 MN
CZ-5           10.64 MN
H-IIB           9.98 MN
Proton-M        9.94 MN
Angara A5       9.61 MN
Delta IV Heavy  9.41 MN

"At 5 million pounds of liftoff thrust, Falcon Heavy is two-thirds the thrust of Saturn V and more than double the thrust of the next largest launch vehicle currently flying."

According to the SpaceX web site Falcon Heavy is 5.55 Mlbf (24.68 MN). That is just over double the thrust of the Atlas V 551 at liftoff. 5 Mlbf (22.24 MN) is not double the thrust.

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/atlas5.html

By powerful I think they are meaning a successful launch of payload to LEO, so...

Energia - 0 tonnes, the Polyus launch failed, would have had a potential payload of 100 tonnes
Energia + Buran - 0 comparing apples to apples the Buran was part of the launch vehicle and carried no payload on its first launch, would have had a potential payload of 30 tonnes
Saturn V - 140 tonnes
Falcon 9 -  54 tonnes
Delta IV Heavy - 28.8 tonnes
Space Shuttle - 27.5 tonnes

Semantics and marketing but not categorically wrong.

[cro-magnon gramps]

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?

That would require a lot more hardware and years of development time that would be better spent on ITS.

Why?

{Jim/}

[CraigLieb]

Payloads to the Moon:
Although I can't afford to go to the Moon yet, I would like to place a few of my parent's ashes there as a memorial to their life journey. When my grandfather was born, the car had just been developed a few decades before, and the family vehicle was a horse/wagon. He lived to see a man walk on the moon and see the Space shuttle launch. To place his only daughter's ashes on the moon might be a fitting tribute.

Would it be possible for a separate company to secure space in the dragon trunk with an ejector that dispenses small cubes (securely sealed) to be deposited on the surface? I imagine they overall package would have to have some retro thrust to separate away and descend which adds to the risk somewhat. Maybe the smart orbital mechanics can determine the minimum dV required from a free return trajectory to a descent trajectory even if it is a very slow descent.

[clongton]

Astronauts do what astronauts do - they ride rockets into space.
Everything else is an add-on activity.
These are not tourists - these are astronauts.

[First Mate Rummey]

Some hints for the two astronauts:
1) Musk: it would give a boost to Musk coolness and give SpaceX rockets and spacecrafts a feeling them being safe enough its creator uses them first. After all, many inventors tried themself their vehicles or inventions;
2) a foreign citizen: this would kick ass to Trump and send him a message that SpaceX is deciding on its own, in the hope to get more funds in exchange of contracting stuff like who to send on these missions. Indeed the press release mentions humankind but not U.S.A..

Hopefully just not Sandra Bullock and George Clooney! 

[Jim]

The flight will undoubtedly return a massive amount of data

Data from what? 

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.

Wrong. if they don't follow aerospace design requirements, then the hardware isn't going to do "science"

You see ISS crew using consumer grade electronics all the time, launching low cost cube sats and doing student experiments. I'm not talking about returning Hubble quality data, but I'm sure there's something that was axed (or not yet invented) from LRO that some scientist somewhere would love to have on board.

Wrong

The ISS crew is using consumer grade electronics at standard atmosphere in a module.  Not the same as in a vacuum in sunlight.
the 'low cost cube sats" don't last very long. (the ones that do use high quality parts do)

[LouScheffer]

The bigger issue I see is how are they going to perform deep space tracking and navigation in the first place in order to be able to *do* TCMs. Leasing NASA assets or is there some trivial way to do that in the absence of GPS in deep space?

There's been a lot of work on  using GPS for deeper space, above the GPS orbits.  In this case you use the beams from the satellites on the far side of the Earth, some of which miss the Earth and spill over.  This is used by the MMS satellites up to 70,000 km today, and should work fine at lunar distances with a somewhat higher gain antenna.  See Navigating in Space - Taking GNSS to New Heights.  Accuracy will not be as good as GPS down low, due to geometrical dilution of precision, but should be plenty good enough for a flyby.

Alternatively, they could use a standard deep space transponder, and rent tracking time from NASA or ESA.  This would be super conservative, since it's what all deep space probes use already..  However it requires much more interaction and complex scheduling with other organizations, and some expense.

[Jim]

1 - How do the thermal systems on Dragon 2 work beyond LEO?
2 - What is the performance of life support on a one week mission?
3 - How do our beyond LEO navigational systems work?
4 - What is the radiation environment beyond LEO experienced by Dragon v2?
5 - How well do our control systems work returning to reentry from beyond LEO?
6 - What is the performance of the heat shield when arriving at ~25,000mph?
7 - How well do our communication systems work at and beyond lunar distances?

I'm sure there is more.

No, there is less.  That data will need to be known before this.  So my point stands. 

[beancounter]

Media show. Won't happen in the timeframe and putting people onboard a spacecraft without a professional crew (i.e. pilots with proper training) is a recipe for disaster. Doesn't matter if Musk wants the Dragon to be 'fully automated', it won't be safe.

Madness.

Dragon goes up and comes back fully automatic.  Soyuz does it,  Buran before then.  Look at the robotic probes that NASA has launched with some still going.  There's nothing magical about automation and not having human crews punching the buttons or whatever isn't a requirement.
You're just stuck in an old paradigm.
Cheers

[Jim]

Are there any "off the shelf" small communications sats that an F-9 could put in orbit around the moon to provide high bandwidth communications relays for the Dragon V2?

No, because the issue is on earth and not in lunar orbit

[Jim]

Some astronauts seem enthusiastic about this.

https://twitter.com/Astro_Mike/status/836346660880015360

Mike Massimino
@Astro_Mike
Okay, the real space race is about to kick into high gear!  Big announcement from @spacex

https://twitter.com/StationCDRKelly/status/836338112498401281

Scott Kelly
@StationCDRKelly
It's been almost a year. Send me!

They are both retired and no longer speak for the astronaut corp.

[Jim]

Which begs the question, how will mid-course corrections be managed? With Draco thrusters alone? Dragon 2 doesn't have the luxury of a SM fat on fuel to modify the trajectory.

Don't need a "a SM fat on fuel".  See LRO, GRAIL, Lunar Orbiter, etc.  They all used small thrusters.

People need to forget the Apollo paradigm.  There are many other ways of doing this.

[RonM]

I've seen some concerns about the capsule entry corridore being really narrow. I disagree.

It was in the Apollo days, certiantly, when they had to ditch the service module before entry, and "skipping off" the atmosphere meant staying in space longer than the capsule was designed for without the extra air and scrubbers.

But Dragon's Trunk has nothing. Power, perhaps, but a few extra batteries are easy enough to manage.

The Superdracos can fire during entry to fine tune the course, and even without that, a mission can be planned to do a lighter aerobreak, do an orbit, and comit to a lighter entry without the hazards of a high speed entry.

Superdracos can do everything BUT FINEtuning.

Which begs the question, how will mid-course corrections be managed? With Draco thrusters alone? Dragon 2 doesn't have the luxury of a SM fat on fuel to modify the trajectory. So many questions. Inertial guidance, ECLSS, entry corridor. I assume Dragon 2 will roll on entry, like Apollo, to control its path. Interesting to compare Dragon 2 capabilities in this regard vs. Apollo, Orion.

Dragon has a lower mass than Apollo, but with eight SuperDraco engines it has about six times the thrust of the Apollo SPS AJ10-137. Plenty of thrust to conduct lunar missions as long as it has enough fuel.

It wouldn't surprise me if SpaceX designed Dragon 2 guidance, ECLSS, etc. to be capable of cislunar operations. NASA has talked about a lunar station with commercial resupply, so SpaceX knows there is a need for that capability.

[kevinof]

They might be retired but they are still Astronauts and well respected.

Some astronauts seem enthusiastic about this.

https://twitter.com/Astro_Mike/status/836346660880015360

Mike Massimino
@Astro_Mike
Okay, the real space race is about to kick into high gear!  Big announcement from @spacex

https://twitter.com/StationCDRKelly/status/836338112498401281

Scott Kelly
@StationCDRKelly
It's been almost a year. Send me!

They are both retired and no longer speak for the astronaut corp.

[Proponent]

With all the talk about NASA supposedly being p...ed about the circumlunar mission, that announcement certainly doesn't sound like that:

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-statement-about-spacex-private-moon-venture-announcement

Perhaps we shouldnt forget that SLS is not necessarily something NASA wants to do - its something Congress makes them do. So I can imagine that this development might be welcomed at least by some within NASA...

Like I said, it gives them an out...

Some substantial parts of NASA, like MSFC, Michoud and Stennis, seem to be very enthusiastic about SLS, and no doubt some big parts of KSC and JSC too.