Launch News SpaceX to send privately crewed Dragon spacecraft around the Moon in 2018

[Kyle]

http://www.spacex.com/news/2017/02/...rewed-dragon-spacecraft-beyond-moon-next-year

 

[Urwumpe]

... How many crewed Dragon spacecraft did SpaceX launch so far? :hmm:

 

[K_Jameson]

http://www.spacex.com/news/2017/02/...rewed-dragon-spacecraft-beyond-moon-next-year

Unlikely.

 

[Frilock]

:rofl:

 

[jedidia]

Next year? Can they even get that thing rated until then?

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Aren't we STILL waiting on the Falcon Heavy's first flight?

 

[Thunder Chicken]

My right brain is screaming "You have to actually launch a Falcon Heavy first Elon! DUH! :facepalm:"

My left brain is going "But they did land 8 of the 1st stages. :hmm:"

The first passengers will be Elon and his hairless cat.:crystalball2:

 

[ADSWNJ]

The audacity of the man!

It's awesome.

 

[Kyle]

Aren't we STILL waiting on the Falcon Heavy's first flight?

Very good chance it'll finally fly this year as FH boosters have been spotted trucking into McGregor.

 

[movieman]

Aren't we STILL waiting on the Falcon Heavy's first flight?

This would presumably be one of the first paying payloads that actually needs one. It's not as though there's much point flying it if no-one has anything to launch on it.

 

[barrygolden]

Falcon Heavy boosters are here in TX and are being tested. I've been trying to promote a Dragon mounted on a Talon lander. Maybe by 2020 ?

also a Red Mars lander with a rover would be nice

 

[slaver0110]

Meanwhile, at Space.com...

Good...NIGHT!!! At space.com, the commentors are losing thier minds!!
http://www.space.com/35844-elon-musk-spacex-announcement-today.html
I've never seen so many Hoax Believers gather to comment so quickly...

ETA: Sorry if this was krass, but it's been a long day.
Cheers!

 

[Andy44]

Good...NIGHT!!! At space.com, the commentors are losing thier minds!!
http://www.space.com/35844-elon-musk-spacex-announcement-today.html
I've never seen so many Hoax Believers gather to comment so quickly...

ETA: Sorry if this was krass, but it's been a long day.
Cheers!

First comment I see on that article:

How are the passenger's protected when traveling thru the Van Allan radiation Belts? I read that the Orion project is having difficulty in overcoming these challenges.

:rant:

Apparently the moon hoaxers are now changing tactics. Instead of simply stating their silly ideas, they are attempting to plant seeds of doubt.

Sometimes it feels like you can't even convince people that water is wet anymore.

 

[slaver0110]

First comment I see on that article:



:rant:

Apparently the moon hoaxers are now changing tactics. Instead of simply stating their silly ideas, they are attempting to plant seeds of doubt.

Sometimes it feels like you can't even convince people that water is wet anymore.

Indeed. Almost like a pre-emptive well-poisoning. Sadly, as I've wrestled with them over what seems like a futile internet-eternity, this is what they do.

:facepalm:

Cheers!

 

[K_Jameson]

The audacity of the man!

It's awesome.

It's only a promotional advertising... I don't see nothing of "audacious".

 

[Urwumpe]

Well, from a project planning point of view, this is getting tough. Even if you would be sending some suicide candidate to the Moon, you need to make sure this mission is a success. Dead astronauts mean dead SpaceX.

So, the responsible manager at SpaceX will have three big epics to solve:

1. The Falcon Heavy needs to be finished and flown. Landing is again optional, but important for the other customers
2. The manned Dragon Capsule needs to be produced, certified for flight and have a reentry test at lunar speeds first
3. SpaceX must have a mission to further practice their cooperation with NASA during a manned mission, ideally already including the DSN

That is all a lot of work to be done in 22 months. It feels to me like Musk is betting his company.

 

[dman]

My right brain is screaming "You have to actually launch a Falcon Heavy first Elon! DUH! :facepalm:"

My left brain is going "But they did land 8 of the 1st stages. :hmm:"

The first passengers will be Elon and his hairless cat.:crystalball2:

Musk still has to work on his evil super villain laugh........

 

[K_Jameson]

Wait a minute.
NASA is considering to fly men around the Moon on the inaugural SLS launch and the news was - rightly - taken with deep skepticism.
Musk announces about the same thing and we are seriously talking about this?

 

[Fabri91]

The situation is a bit different between the two cases: regarding SLS-1, NASA has been asked to investigate the feasibility of having astronauts fly on it, but there's a certain skepticism because this would be the rocket's first flight at all.

Regarding the SpaceX flight, an official announcement has already been made, and this is not scheduled to be the first flight for Dragon2 or the F9-Heavy launche vehicle, so from this point of view it seems feasible. SpaceX also is approaching the point of being consistently able to recover first stages, another proposition that at the time encountered a lot of skepticism.

The fact that this cislunar flight shouldn't require brand new hardware, as opposed to the accomplished feat of first-stage recovery, also contributes to making this plan seems feasible to me.

What does indeed strike me as unfeasible is the timeline: F9H will need to launch a couple of times, Dragon2 too, and this is before any manned mission even only to LEO and this not with tourists as the only crew.

If I had to bet I'd say that the flight is going to happen, just not in 2018.

 

[K_Jameson]

The situation is a bit different between the two cases: regarding SLS-1, NASA has been asked to investigate the feasibility of having astronauts fly on it, but there's a certain skepticism because this would be the rocket's first flight at all.

Orion command module, at least, is flight-proven, also in the Van Allen belts.
Dragon 2.0 is not.

And Falcon Heavy is still on paper, and four years behind schedule.

And I must believe that two private citizen, 22 months from now, will be sent around the Moon on that stack? Oh yes, if Musk is in search of suicides...

Forgive me if I don't trust Musk.

---------- Post added at 03:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:59 PM ----------

SpaceX also is approaching the point of being consistently able to recover first stages, another proposition that at the time encountered a lot of skepticism.

The skepticism remains today and is not about the feasibility of the recovery, but about the economics of the reuse.

The fact that this cislunar flight shouldn't require brand new hardware, as opposed to the accomplished feat of first-stage recovery, also contributes to making this plan seems feasible to me.

Let's imagine a couple of rich citizens, around the moon in a totally automated flight. What if the mission incurs in some problem and these untrained men must take manual control?
And this is only one of the myriad of things that can go wrong. Is not permitted to tourists to go alone even in LEO - or even in some other risky adventure... ON EARTH... and I have to believe that in 2018 they will go around the Moon in solitude? Oh, maybe one of the two could be James Cameron.

IMHO, better to launch real astronauts, take time to train it, and also take time to develop and test at perfection all the hardware. A failure that involves the loss of crew could be catastrophic for SpaceX and for the private venture as a whole.