Going back to the moon!

[Rickysa]

SpaceX to take passengers around the moon....next year


Happy camper!


https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/feb/27/spacex-moon-private-mission-2018-elon-musk

[GH85Carrera]

Those guys have to be extreme risk lovers and very very wealthy.

Good luck to them.

[aap1966]

An excellent summary of Elon Musk and Space-X.

Elon Musk: The World's Raddest Man - Wait But Why

[Rickysa]

I didn't know about all the recent stuff (landing on a barge at sea, at night, in clouds, etc.) Pretty cool!

[sammyg2]

As long as I don't have to pay for it ..............

[Evans, Marv]

Amazing how the government took many years, huge organization & beaurocracy (sp.?), thousands of people, huge amounts of tax dollars, etc.,etc., and some private corporation comes in after a few years and announces going to the moon in a year.

[KNS]

If it's a success it will be spectacular.

If it fails it will be spectacularly grim.

[KNS]

Originally Posted by Evans, Marv

Amazing how the government took many years, huge organization & beaurocracy (sp.?), thousands of people, huge amounts of tax dollars, etc.,etc., and some private corporation comes in after a few years and announces going to the moon in a year.

Those thousands of people paved the way and pioneered into uncharted territory. What a stupid comment.

The Russians probably spent just as much if not more in the same time period and failed to get to the moon (with a manned mission).

[sc_rufctr]

Great but what if something goes wrong? ... There is no viable rescue plan! (& good luck getting insurance company to cover this)
We are not technically ready for space tourism.

A professional astronaut who is aware for the risks is an entirely different situation.

[KNS]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

Great but what if something goes wrong? ... There is no viable rescue plan! (& good luck getting insurance company to cover this)
We are not technically ready for space tourism.

Musk has stated that the two space tourists have accepted the fact that it *might* be a one-way trip.

[svandamme]

all it takes is one of the underpayed factory workers to mis a couple of work instructions for the rocket, on a rough monday.

Assuming they all have several kids, that will split up the estate, it's safe to say they will drop out of the 0,1% and the entire top will average lower after that.

[dewolf]

Originally Posted by Evans, Marv

Amazing how the government took many years, huge organization & beaurocracy (sp.?), thousands of people, huge amounts of tax dollars, etc.,etc., and some private corporation comes in after a few years and announces going to the moon in a year.

All the ground work has already been done.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by Evans, Marv

Amazing how the government took many years, huge organization & beaurocracy (sp.?), thousands of people, huge amounts of tax dollars, etc.,etc., and some private corporation comes in after a few years and announces going to the moon in a year.

Huge difference is the time frame. Now days partly because of the NASA moon missions anyone can go buy a single smart phone with WAY more computing prowess than all of NASA had available in the 1960s. No one on the planet had any idea how to plot the trajectory to and from the moon. They had to invent that. All NASA had done was launch Alan Shepard into a sub orbital flight when Kennedy said we should go to the moon. We were not sure if humans could survive the time in space at all back then.

Also NASA landed on the moon and got every single Apollo astronaut back home safely.

The Russians gave it their best effort and never even sent a human into orbit around the moon.

Only 12 humans have ever orbited the moon.

[911_Dude]

Id give it a 50/50 chance of making it back alive. Ill nope on that. It will make for some great TV tho.

[dad911]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

As long as I don't have to pay for it ..............

Looks like we did..... Elon Musk's growing empire is fueled by $4.9 billion in government subsidies - LA Times

[911_Dude]

Musk is one of the few billionaires actually doing something worthwhile with tax breaks, etc. Hes got some serious long term goals that arent just to line his pockets. I say more power to him.

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

Great but what if something goes wrong? ... There is no viable rescue plan! (& good luck getting insurance company to cover this)
We are not technically ready for space tourism.

A professional astronaut who is aware for the risks is an entirely different situation.

They are not doing a TLI (trans lunar injection), but will simply be doing a flyby. I expect this is to save fuel, since they will be just make the orbit a large ellipse without entering Lunar Orbit.

The red is what they will do vs. a real TLI which is the continuation of the black line around the moon.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by 911_Dude

Musk is one of the few billionaires actually doing something worthwhile with tax breaks, etc. Hes got some serious long term goals that arent just to line his pockets. I say more power to him.

You can be as generous as you want to be WITH YOUR MONEY.
But not with mine.

Musk is a con-man and is getting richer off of us.

[Fast Freddy 944]

Yeup, a very low tech way of space travel, lets see, waste money on social bunk, check, shuttle craft disappears check, going back to Apollo style of capsule very low tech and out of date check.
Wake me up from snoozing when we have cool stuff like this!

[red-beard]

I'm working on it. Patent is in progress.

Energy - it is all about the energy!