OT: SpaceX Announces Plans to Fly Around the Moon
SpaceX today announced that it is planning to launch two private customers on a flight around the moon late next year. The mission appears to be mostly or entirely funded by the prospective passengers, who have paid a significant deposit, and will utilize the Falcon Heavy rocket, which is scheduled to debut this summer. This would apparently occur shortly after the first Crewed Dragon mission to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station, another flight that has yet to occur.
The youngest people who have any memory of the Apollo moon missions turn 50 next year, so this would be an exciting, if ephemeral, step in human spaceflight. It comes at the same time that a political administration which will remain nameless has asked NASA to examine the feasibility of putting humans on the debut flight of the Space Launch System, currently scheduled for an unmanned launch in 2018 or 2019.
The relationship between SpaceX and NASA is kind of tricky, with NASA (wisely) contracting SpaceX for ISS cargo missions and astronaut ferrying, and SpaceX unreservedly praising NASA in the same release it announces a mission that must feel like a knife in the back. All of this is somewhat speculative, though, as all three prospective human-rated capsules (Orion, Boeing's commercial crew capsule, and SpaceX's crewed Dragon) are experiencing delays. So a little competition might be a good thing.
If US-based organizations can finally put astronauts back into orbit on their own vehicles, though, I'm excited to see it.
February 27th, 2017 at 10:50 PM ^
The geek in me thinks that the returing booster rockets landing on a raft in the ocean is possibly the greatest thing ever... I could watch those over and over.
February 27th, 2017 at 11:58 PM ^
Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor for the Orion Crew Capsule, not Boeing. The Orion spacecraft is compatible with multiple launch vehicles including Boeing's Delta IV Heavy, of McDonnell Douglas heritage.
February 28th, 2017 at 12:19 AM ^
Someday when space tourism is a little more common, a company is going to make a spacecraft that looks like the Millenium Falcon instead of a generic cone and cylinder. That will be the peak of humanity.
February 28th, 2017 at 2:54 AM ^
Is this a response to me? Boeing is developing a separate capsule, called the "Starliner," for ISS crew missions, parallel to SpaceX. That's what I was mentioning.
February 28th, 2017 at 7:17 AM ^
February 28th, 2017 at 10:31 AM ^
Understood.
February 28th, 2017 at 12:32 AM ^
February 28th, 2017 at 5:57 AM ^
They can't seriously expect me to pay them amirite? Lets see, I suppose after they send up oh say 40 rockets.without any catastrophic anomalies I believe they call them. I call it the spaceship blowing up into a million fragments. Maybe I would give it a try so lets just count me out.
February 28th, 2017 at 6:39 AM ^
the government won't let this happen because our earth is flat and if everyday people can fly in space they will ruin the great lie!
February 28th, 2017 at 6:50 AM ^
February 28th, 2017 at 9:18 AM ^
my question is does anyone know the cost of an apollo moon mission? I thought privatization was supposed to be cheaper. It does not seem like a money saving endever.
February 28th, 2017 at 10:30 AM ^
That's not so simple to calculate - do you take into account all of the costs of the technology development that got you to that point? Do you assume only the variable costs of the flight? You can argue the cost as anywhere from $300 million to $3 billion in today's dollars.
SpaceX is standing on the shoulders of those before them and willing to take risk that NASA would never reasonably take. They may be successful, but there is a good sized chance that these guys are signing up for their own deaths.
The human rating requirements and overall requirements that Orion is being designed to is night and day different than SpaceX putting a capsule designed for low Earth orbit into deep space on a rocket with little heritage, recent failures in what it's using for its core stages/boosters, and without any type of real human rating certification.
February 28th, 2017 at 11:13 AM ^
Elon Musk is just a normal dude like you and I, but 1000% cooler.