SpaceX Crewed Dragon Circumlunar Mission

[Jim]

Aerobrake around the Earth ala Mars orbiters. See what Planet is doing with their cubesats.

Huh?

He is proposing that they try to land on the moon and not earth.
There is no aerobraking for the moon.
Aerobrake around the Earth requires to be in earth orbit and would do nothing for moon.
Aerocapture (which has yet to be done) would mean it is still in earth orbit.

So, what is your point?

[ppb]

Aerobrake around the Earth ala Mars orbiters. See what Planet is doing with their cubesats.

That isn't going to help them land on the moon

I thought we were talking about depositing cremains on the moon from this mission. But ya, probably too much requirements creep.

[raketa]

And if they slip it didn't mean next chance in 2 years. Because they could fly almost any day.

[rsdavis9]

Exciting new for sure, and imagine a three-way lunar race - lunar Soyuz vs manned EM-1 vs lunar Dragon. 
I suggest we call the circumlunar mission " Grey Dragon" (because the Moon is grey of course)
But...
To me manned Moon is as difficult as unmanned Mars... and unmanned Mars already missed the 2018 launch window.
What I mean is that Musk replaced an impossible (schedule) mission with another, similarly impossible mission.
An example: both missions need Falcon 9H and Dragon 2, which are hardly ready.

Both have been in development for years and both are planned to fly later this year.  I don't see any evidence to support your claim that a flight by both a year later is "impossible".

Sure, the schedules could slip and they might not be able to make a 2018 target.  But "impossible" is an overstatement -- by a lot.

actually the difference is red dragon versus dragon 2.
Dragon 2 is already scheduled for 1st flight at end of 2017.
Red Dragon is a dragon 2 with at least some additional mods and tests
    1. demonstrated propulsive landing on earth
    2. Extra fuel for mars landing
    3. people stuff stripping
    4. Payload for mars mods
So this mission is more "off the shelf stuff" then mars 2018.

[ppb]

Aerobrake around the Earth ala Mars orbiters. See what Planet is doing with their cubesats.

Huh?

He is proposing that they try to land on the moon and not earth.
There is no aerobraking for the moon.
Aerobrake around the Earth requires to be in earth orbit and would do nothing for moon.
Aerocapture (which has yet to be done) would mean it is still in earth orbit.

So, what is your point?

The original idea was to do something else on the cicumlunar mission, and the poster's idea was to deposit cremains on the moon, maybe in an ejected cubesat vessel. I thought your delta v comment was referring to that.

[raketa]

Right she Spacex is flying hardware every month. SLS one launch on several years. It wil not tested system. I will not fly it.

[rsdavis9]

Aerobrake around the Earth ala Mars orbiters. See what Planet is doing with their cubesats.

Huh?

He is proposing that they try to land on the moon and not earth.
There is no aerobraking for the moon.
Aerobrake around the Earth requires to be in earth orbit and would do nothing for moon.
Aerocapture (which has yet to be done) would mean it is still in earth orbit.

So, what is your point?

The original idea was to do something else on the cicumlunar mission, and the poster's idea was to deposit cremains on the moon, maybe in an ejected cubesat vessel. I thought your delta v comment was referring to that.

as said above it is probably best to either eject after or during TLI or put it on S2.
If done after TLI it means the initial trajectory would be impact moon.
Might not be a good idea.

[pb2000]

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)

Exactly, for stuff in the trunk, it only needs to last ~6 days, and it would be trivial add enough shielding and heat-sinking for that period of time.

[montyrmanley]

Jeesh, there is some double talk.

SLS has more struggles with both.
SLS schedules are worse than Spacex
As for reliability, SLS related components have caused some of the most expensive spaceflight accidents.

I would be worried if I lived in the Huntsville/Decatur area

Many the SLS/Orion development problems stem, IMO, from NASA's horrible project management and outdated procurement model, not so much with the design of the system itself. I expect the SLS, all things being equal, will be a very reliable launch platform...but also an extremely expensive one. Going with the traditional capsule-on-top model will alleviate the most severe safety design flaw of the shuttle (the side-mount orbiter).

SpaceX's Falcon is a pretty reliable booster, but it has a ways to go to match that of the Atlas or even Soyuz. This reliability issue will be amplified when they start flying "used" boosters and the long-delayed FH this year. If SpaceX can execute their 2017/2018 plans with no major anomalies, that's going to put the SLS project in a very precarious position, particularly with the current Administration. On the other hand, if the FH does not perform to expectations or is delayed again, it could boost the fortunes of the SLS accordingly.

[smfarmer11]

The easiest thing would to do what EM-1 was going to do before any manned volitions of putting a few cubesats on the second stage or in this case, the trunk.

[mme]

To NASA's credit, they're putting on a brave face and making it sound like it's at least partially their idea.

I don't understand all these assumptions that NASA (as if it's a monolith) has a problem with this. There are people in NASA that support Commercial Space. The whole point of Commercial Space is to foster this sort of thing.

NASA is a big organization with a lot of moving parts and people with different goals and beliefs. No doubt there are groups that are not fans of commercial space. But if we're going to refer to NASA as a monolith, they have been a huge supporter of SpaceX.  If they were anti-SpaceX they could have down selected them and gone with Starliner only for crew.  They could have said no to using Dragon 2 for latest commercial cargo contract.  There are so many ways that NASA could have delayed or derailed SpaceX over the years and they haven't.

[Jim]

outdated procurement model, not so much with the design of the system itself.

Not true at all.  It is a 180. 

The government still has a need to buy hardware and to use cost plus.  Cost plus is never going away.
The issue with SLS is that is an outdated hardware and design.

[Ben the Space Brit]

FWIW, the only thing that I want to see in the trunk is a Kestrel engine and plenty of fuel tanks to take care of the LOI/ROI issue.

[RedLineTrain]

After some thought, this looks to me like a gambit played in the SLS versus Commercial Crew tug-of-war, coming three days after NASA's press conference on the EM-1 study.

Nasawatch's coverage of this seems right on.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Buzz Aldrin
‏Verified account @TheRealBuzz

Actually @elonmusk I support space tourism & there are many useful things we can do at the moon such as an Int'l moon base mining the ice.🌙🌘

https://twitter.com/TheRealBuzz/status/836624983073910784

[mme]

Jeesh, there is some double talk.

SLS has more struggles with both.
SLS schedules are worse than Spacex
As for reliability, SLS related components have caused some of the most expensive spaceflight accidents.

I would be worried if I lived in the Huntsville/Decatur area

Many the SLS/Orion development problems stem, IMO, from NASA's horrible project management and outdated procurement model, not so much with the design of the system itself. I expect the SLS, all things being equal, will be a very reliable launch platform...but also an extremely expensive one. Going with the traditional capsule-on-top model will alleviate the most severe safety design flaw of the shuttle (the side-mount orbiter).

SpaceX's Falcon is a pretty reliable booster, but it has a ways to go to match that of the Atlas or even Soyuz. This reliability issue will be amplified when they start flying "used" boosters and the long-delayed FH this year. If SpaceX can execute their 2017/2018 plans with no major anomalies, that's going to put the SLS project in a very precarious position, particularly with the current Administration. On the other hand, if the FH does not perform to expectations or is delayed again, it could boost the fortunes of the SLS accordingly.

The SLS procurement model, choice of key hardware, support of missions to leverage it and it's very existence are largely outside of NASA's control so I think it's pretty unfair to blame it on NASA.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

To NASA's credit, they're putting on a brave face and making it sound like it's at least partially their idea.

I don't understand all these assumptions that NASA (as if it's a monolith) has a problem with this. There are people in NASA that support Commercial Space. The whole point of Commercial Space is to foster this sort of thing.

NASA is a big organization with a lot of moving parts and people with different goals and beliefs. No doubt there are groups that are not fans of commercial space. But if we're going to refer to NASA as a monolith, they have been a huge supporter of SpaceX.  If they were anti-SpaceX they could have down selected them and gone with Starliner only for crew.  They could have said no to using Dragon 2 for latest commercial cargo contract.  There are so many ways that NASA could have delayed or derailed SpaceX over the years and they haven't.

Eric Berger has a good piece on what parts of NASA may really be thinking about yesterday's announcement: https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/02/if-you-think-nasa-is-frustrated-with-spacex-youre-probably-right/

Edit: clarified

[smfarmer11]

The kestrel in the trunk idea is a non starter mainly because it's use of cryogenic propellants. Better would be a superDraco with a higher expansion ration for better ISP, and the storability of hypergolics. However this subject was discussed extensively in this thread:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=40318.0

[dodo]

Buzz Aldrin
‏Verified account @TheRealBuzz

Actually @elonmusk I support space tourism & there are many useful things we can do at the moon such as an Int'l moon base mining the ice.🌙🌘

https://twitter.com/TheRealBuzz/status/836624983073910784

For the sake of completeness, his first tweet of the subject was:

Buzz Aldrin
@TheRealBuzz
Been there, done that. I prefer Get Your Ass to #Mars [red ball here]#GYATM

Also, yesterday Bill Harwood did a short piece on this for CBS:

[Rocket Science]

This is the natural progression of technology which has happened before so NASA should understand this. In the 1930's civilian aircraft were faster than the US government military fighters. Air racing drove technology hard and if it wasn't for WWII the air force would still have been behind civil aviation. This is just an ebb and flow where once all the institutional knowledge was exclusively held by the government. What NASA should be doing is  cutting edge nuclear propulsion R&D...