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SpaceX to Send Privately Crewed Dragon Spacecraft Beyond the Moon Next Year

1747 points by runesoerensen 10y ago

deleted 10y ago
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jansen 10y ago
A quote from an article on the Verge says "Musk declined to comment on the exact cost of the trip, but said it was “comparable” or a little more than the cost of a crewed mission to the International Space Station." Does anyone have a rough estimate how much a manned mission to the ISS currently costs?
- goshx 10y ago
  $82 millions according to the announcer at Kennedy Space Center while I was waiting for the Falcon 9 launch.
  - redant 10y ago
    Are you talking about unmanned mission? Because he specifically mentioned crewed mission.
    - goshx 10y ago
      I am talking about the price Russia charges the US to send one human to the ISS. I guess the announcer wasn't correct. That amount would be for 2018. http://www.businessinsider.com/astronaut-cost-per-soyuz-seat-2016-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/astronaut-cost-per-soyuz-seat...
- trafficlight 10y ago
  http://www.businessinsider.com/space-travel-per-seat-cost-soyuz-2016-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/space-travel-per-seat-cost-so... Russia currently charges $58 million per seat to the ISS, with the price expected to increase to $80ish million by 2018.
- plttn 10y ago
  If I remember correctly, the price of a Soyuz seat is around $20,000,000USD for tourists, with NASA's price to fly on Soyuz being much higher per seat.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- bobsky 10y ago
  Appears to be around $80M per seat. Great graph of how it increase from $20M in 2008 to $80M today after NASA permanently grounded its space shuttles: http://www.businessinsider.com/space-travel-per-seat-cost-soyuz-2016-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/space-travel-per-seat-cost-so...
- westbywest 10y ago
  At least from NASA's standpoint, looks like they budget single-digit $Billions for human spaceflight, out of a yearly budget in the range of $18B. I'm not sure how cleanly that can be broken down per-mission, since stays aboard the ISS can now exceed 12 months. https://spaceflightnow.com/2015/02/02/nasa-outlines-fy-2016-budget-request/ https://spaceflightnow.com/2015/02/02/nasa-outlines-fy-2016-...
- reddog 10y ago
  For perspective, it cost about $200 million to get your name on an America's Cup trophy. So as billionaire vanity projects go, this is pretty reasonable.
- netcraft 10y ago
  On a different end of the spectrum, Emily Calandrelli is giving a $35M figure for the last ISS ticket: https://twitter.com/TheSpaceGal/status/836333012056842240 https://twitter.com/TheSpaceGal/status/836333012056842240
skosuri 10y ago
I wonder who the two people are.
- agildehaus 10y ago
  Hope they like each other.
- adanto6840 10y ago
  I wonder what the life insurance policy costs -- though perhaps in this case these individuals don't need one due to their existing wealth. I guess super-wealthy people just "self insure" eh?
runesoerensen 10y ago
> We are excited to announce that SpaceX has been approached to fly two private citizens on a trip around the moon late next year. They have already paid a significant deposit to do a moon mission. Can't wait to hear who booked this trip! Definitely one of the coolest ways to spend a lot of superfluous money :)
- MrZongle2 10y ago
  Maybe Richard Garriot wants to survey his property (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Garriott#Other_accomplishments_and_interests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Garriott#Other_accompl...) from near-lunar orbit. ;)
  - nkoren 10y ago
    "Not me... yet!" https://twitter.com/RichardGarriott/status/836327841876738048 https://twitter.com/RichardGarriott/status/83632784187673804...
  - easytiger 10y ago
    interestingly his wife was president of a (now failed) space tech company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_Dynamics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_Dynamics
- solidr53 10y ago
  Same! I also think that spending money on a roundtrip to the moon is way better for humanity than spending it on champagne, caviar and cars.
  - coryfklein 10y ago
    Not sure everyone will see it that way. One could look at it as taking the whole "wasteful private jet" to the extreme. Think of the sheer amount of fuel burned in the earth's atmosphere so a rich guy can fly in space. At least, I expect many will spin it that way.
danmoreno 10y ago
zuck and priscilla?
- monomyth 10y ago
  Donald and Vladimir?
  - narcilian 10y ago
    I don't think the world is that lucky.
  - anonymfus 10y ago
    That would be very Moscow 2042-ish.
  - simplemath 10y ago
    "We seem to have somehow miscalculated our trajectories and the vehicle is now permanently locked in low lunar orbit forever with no recourse. Sorry for the inconvenience."
  - Apocryphon 10y ago
    2001 Nights - Night 1: Earthglow
- Nokinside 10y ago
  Zuck going around the moon would make sense. He clearly has political ambitions, but he must acquire personality. Being an space-tourist would help.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    How on Earth (pun intended) would that help?
    - enra 10y ago
      Same way politician candidates often acquire some military background. It builds their profile and they have something to tell stories about. It doesn't really matter what they actually did there. In modern times, most people at least in the US doesn't have military experience and they tend to give it a somewhat mythical status. Those who do, can feel that the candidate relates to them. So it can be an rhetoric for anything "you know, the time was I went around moon, this happened, which made me realize that x is more important than y". No-one can really discount that experience easily or politely since they haven't done that, and somewhat more admirable and mythical than creating a social networking website.
DanielBMarkham 10y ago
Huge SpaceX fan here, but I've heard from various news sources that the company is famous for aggressively posting dates and then slowly letting them slide. Might that be the case here? (Still, even if it's 2 or 3 years, wow!)
- cletusw 10y ago
  The main factor supporting their claim is that they have a very strong incentive to be ferrying crew to/from the ISS around this time, so barring any big mishaps with Falcon Heavy (supposed to be ready this summer/fall), all the pieces should be in place if not by next year, then certainly just a year or two later. Which, as you mentioned, is just as impressive!
  - DanielBMarkham 10y ago
    This is what I'm referring to: "...The draft report from the GAO, which is Congress’ investigative arm, also concluded that neither SpaceX nor the Boeing Co. is likely to conduct regular space taxi flights to the space station by 2018..." http://www.geekwire.com/2017/gao-journal-spacex-rocket-turbopump-cracking/ http://www.geekwire.com/2017/gao-journal-spacex-rocket-turbo...
    - cletusw 10y ago
      Could be true, but SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell challenged that report directly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjXYSJF-7Cs&t=16m31s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjXYSJF-7Cs&t=16m31s
      - thelambentonion 10y ago
        Shotwell's response is in the best interests of her company, but SpaceX is (as well as Boeing) woefully behind on a reasonable timeline to reach human-rated flight for both their rocket and crew module. We should have learned from both the early Apollo program, and the Shuttle failures, that human lives shouldn't be treated as expendable capital in this industry. Both SpaceX's current announcement, and the US Gov's desire to put humans on the first flight SLS flight, are deeply troubling in that regard.
robtaylor 10y ago
...and back!
ktta 10y ago
I wonder if it is going to be only two people who are going to go. Will they add more people if they come forward with significant amount of money too? Seems to me like the cost of taking in another person will be negligible in comparison to the funding they could contribute. This is literally a one-in-a-lifetime experience
- trafficlight 10y ago
  Probably not a ton of extra space for a multi-day trip?
  - olex 10y ago
    That's probably it. Not as much space I think, but life support for an extended period of time. This is one key difference between Dragon/CST-100 and Orion: the latter is designed for extended deep space travel with full crew, and can support them accordingly, while the former are primarily LEO taxis with more limited deep space capabilities.
    - nickik 10y ago
      The problem with the Orion is that there simply aren't many useful missions. Orion can also go around the moon, just like Dragon 2, but for both craft that is the end of the line (at least for Crewed versions). The difference is that Orion cost about as much as Dragon 1, Dragon 2, Falcon and Falcon Heavy combined. If we add the cost of a SLS launch it goes into another dimension of cost.
- strictnein 10y ago
  Others will likely follow, per SpaceX, but I think this is a two person ride. > "Other flight teams have also expressed strong interest and we expect more to follow."
- edsouza 10y ago
  The two private citizens will need a support team in capsule unless they are experienced astronauts and have the technical skills to learn all the systems on the dragon crew capsule.
Udik 10y ago
So, hmm, we wants to send people around the moon, a year and a half from now, with a rocket he never tested and with a capsule that never flew? I expect half of the directors of SpaceX to resign in the next two days...
- agildehaus 10y ago
  Not sure how this differs from Apollo.
  - amalag 10y ago
    Apollo had manned space missions before that.
    - _ph_ 10y ago
      SpaceX plans to do this Moon mission only after they had manned missions to the ISS.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - Udik 10y ago
    The cold war? A national effort? Dead crews during the project? I mean, I'm half joking, I believe that it is a possible objective, as much as it is possible to manufacture 500k Model 3s a year.. next year. Possible, but a monumental effort and something on which Musk strongly disagrees even with the top managers in his own companies.
    - nickik 10y ago
      The space ship is already being developed for the Commercial Crew program. The rocket is a new rocket but with the same engines and the same upper stage. This does not seem so impossible. A couple of delays will happen, but all in all, there is no fundamental problem.
suprgeek 10y ago
While this feat depends on hitting a lot of intermediate milestones - Falcon Heavy Test, Crew Dragon Unmanned to ISS, Crew Dragon manned to ISS, etc, there is no "show-stopper" that is apparent right now. I like how they have avoided committing to the much harder "landing on the Moon and then return" scenario.
- dwringer 10y ago
  We choose to not go to the moon, but do the other things, not because they are hard, but because they are relatively easy, and we can make a quick buck.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - rhcom2 10y ago
    Also the moon is pretty boring and Elon Musk likes exciting things.
    - Svezik 10y ago
      Making an automobile that people actually want to buy would be exciting.
      - ctdonath 10y ago
        There were how many $1000 deposits on Model 3s?
      - bplsports92 10y ago
        I assume this is a joke?
    - trafficlight 10y ago
      How I wish I could experience the boredom of flying around the Moon.
  - 10y ago
c-slice 10y ago
I wonder what NASA is thinking about this? The NASA Commercial Crew program which helped fund the development of the Dragon was funded for manned flight to the ISS. I'm curious if they see this as part of the project scope?
- berberous 10y ago
  Read the article: "By also flying privately crewed missions, which NASA has encouraged, long-term costs to the government decline and more flight reliability history is gained, benefiting both government and private missions."
- nickik 10y ago
  The COTS and Commercial Crew program have specifically been made so that Companies can reuse the hardware for other projects as well. This is the exact thing that NASA has hoped for.
_ph_ 10y ago
This is exciting news. Some time ago, looking at the F9 Heavy, it seemed to me that SpaceX could fly to the moon with it anytime they decided to. Of course their focus is the Mars. But in the day and age of multi-billionaires and the commercial availability of space flights via SpaceX, this makes absolutely sense. Private funding could push space flights much quicker ahead.
davidklemke 10y ago
Absolutely incredible. This will be the furthest that humanity has journeyed away from Earth in a very long time. However it is worth noting that there hasn't been a single crewed Dragon flight yet. There are demonstator flights scheduled for this year though with the first NASA crewed mission slated for May 2018. That's an incredibly aggressive timeline but if anyone can achieve it, SpaceX can. The long duration flight beyond the moon will be a fantastic proving ground, however.
- marcofloriano 10y ago
  > That's an incredibly aggressive timeline Sometimes i wonder if that's an strategy from the management team to put pressure in the engineers.
  - crznp 10y ago
    It seems like a carrot and a stick because it also reinforces the "SpaceX is special" narrative.
  - ehnto 10y ago
    In the same way that hitting a stuck bolt with a hammer is a strategy. It applies pressure sure, but you break your tools and the nut gets stripped. It seems to a preferred motivation method though.
    - robotresearcher 10y ago
      It worked before. Kennedy's moon shot speech was 8 years and 2 months before Apollo 11 landed on the moon. The speech was made before the US had put a person in orbit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T1ztqhYQ7g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T1ztqhYQ7g
      - ehnto 10y ago
        It definitely works, and you might argue that when it comes to forwarding humanity, then what of a few exhausted engineers! But in other contexts perhaps not an elegant methodology.
soheil 10y ago
Who are the two "private citizens"? Seems to be mere urge of "universal human exploration" to go around the moon and not landing on it, etc. isn't doing much exploring, but rather taking a lot of risk on a manned spacecraft that has never been tested with people.
- obstinate 10y ago
  Presumably they will test the spacecraft at least once before sending it out manned. We sent crewed capsules around the moon without landing during the Apollo program too.
  - bennyg 10y ago
    They're doing a Falcon Heavy launch beforehand (at least once) before this mission takes place.
- Aaronn 10y ago
  Well the spacecraft will be tested multiple times before this mission and there are health and fitness tests before departure just like it says there. Both of those were addressed, I think you may have misread this.
  - soheil 10y ago
    You're right I misread the testing part. I'd very much still like to know who those people are and what their thought process is.
    - jessriedel 10y ago
      I'd like to know the thought process of people who have this much money and don't want to orbit the moon.
      - soheil 10y ago
        I think you're missing the point, of course in an ideal situation where risk is minimized that would be a good question. But by focusing on money I think you neglected to address the obvious point that I raised namely what if it blows up.
biosoup 10y ago
I'm gonna make my tip, given Elon's history: Sergey Brin and Larry Page Two of his freind rich enough, geeky enough, to go first.
- schwarrrtz 10y ago
  Something tells me they wouldn't both go on the same trip, given the risk.
  - biosoup 10y ago
    yeah, their insurance company would be furious :)
    - mrep 10y ago
      Insurance company? Why would billionaires waste their money or time on insurance?
- janywer 10y ago
  just imagine the effects on Alphabet's stock price
  - biosoup 10y ago
    they don't care, they own majority of voting rights and almost the stocks itself
- ErikHuisman 10y ago
  I would maybe guess Branson and Bezos as a stunt promoting private space tourism and thereby their space companies :)
  - SmellyGeekBoy 10y ago
    Wouldn't that be admitting defeat?
gydfi 10y ago
Just looking up records: the furthest anyone has ever been from Earth is Apollo 13 who passed 158 miles above the lunar surface. I imagine that would be a pretty easy record to break, if you're doing a translunar flight anyway then getting a bit higher doesn't take much more energy (source: played a lot of Kerbal). On the other hand the passengers might prefer a close-up view of the Moon to a record.
- pklausler 10y ago
  But the moon isn't at a fixed distance. It's possible that one of the other cislunar or landing Apollo missions was more distant, geocentrically, even with their standard 69-mile lunar orbital heights.
  - pklausler 10y ago
    Did some more research, and yes, Apollo 13 was indeed the furthest in geocentric distance as well.
    - gydfi 10y ago
      Great, so with good timing we can both get a great view and set a record simultaneously.
skizm 10y ago
Is it still a thing, where going to space makes you infertile due to radiation? I feel like I remember basically once you go into space (male or female) kids are off the table afterwards unless you have frozen your sperm or eggs beforehand. Not sure if that was solved at some point or not.
- mburns 10y ago
  >A 2005 study Jennings co-authored counted 17 babies born to female astronauts after they had been in space. https://phys.org/news/2011-01-sex-space-houston-problem.html https://phys.org/news/2011-01-sex-space-houston-problem.html
- ntumlin 10y ago
  According to stack exchange, it doesn't [0]. If that's wrong maybe I can fund a trip to space of my own by selling lead lined boxers. [0] http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/14704/do-astronauts-become-sterile-from-being-in-space-like-on-the-iss http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/14704/do-astronauts...
- TimesOldRoman 10y ago
  As long as you stay near the Earth (the moon is close enough), our magnetosphere will protect you from radiation. When you get interplanetary, like on a trip to Mars, radiation exposure becomes arguable the most difficult problem to solve.
  - acover 10y ago
    Source? > The Mars Radiation Environment Experiment (MARIE) was launched in 2001 in order to collect more data. Estimates are that humans unshielded in interplanetary space would receive annually roughly 400 to 900 mSv (compared to 2.4 mSv on Earth) and that a Mars mission (12 months in flight and 18 months on Mars) might expose shielded astronauts to roughly 500 to 1000 mSv. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_threat_from_cosmic_rays#The_deep-space_radiation_environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_threat_from_cosmic_rays...
manis404 10y ago
I wonder how many refugees could be funded with the amount that they paid. SAD!
gigatexal 10y ago
Finally the tin-foil hats can be satiated when these tourists see the 50-ish year old flag on the moon.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  60-ish? More like 50-ish. I remember those landings and I'm nowhere near 60. Weirdest thing, I can't delete this comment now that the other comment has been fixed.
  - tshannon 10y ago
    Maybe they used an old flag?
  - gigatexal 10y ago
    edited.
- jonathansizz 10y ago
  No amount of data can convince a conspiracy theorist that they're wrong (the new data are just part of the conspiracy). They'll just say the new images are faked, just as they say the original missions were.
- lighttower 10y ago
  The flags have been bleached white by the unfiltered solar UV due to lack of lunar atmosphere
- nickff 10y ago
  NASA actually has a post on what the statuses of the flags are; they are probably bleached or disintegrated.[1] Interestingly, I would guess that the flag most likely to have survived would be the one from Apollo 11, because it was too close to the lander, and got knocked over by the ascent module; it may have been covered with dust and protected, but this is only a remote possibility. note: the post says that the LROC shows shadows from the flags, but it seems highly unlikely they are pristine or even intact. [1] https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/ApolloFlags-Condition.html https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/ApolloFlags-Condition.html
iklos55 10y ago
Finally. I am so so hyped for SpaceX's development. Hopefully they can stay afloat to experience stability and a stage where they can sit on funding and provide credit for fusion and/or antimatter research. Glad they're here to give us a glimpse into the future of space travel.
hackuser 10y ago
Note that NASA, I believe at Trump's urging, recently said they would try to place humans on the first flight of the Space Launch System (the new heavy lift rocket) - i.e., no unmanned testing first. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/science/nasa-looks-to-speed-timetable-for-putting-astronauts-in-deep-space.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/science/nasa-looks-to-spe... Is Musk still maintaining a relationship with Trump? When Uber founder Travis Kalanick left Trump's business council, Musk was still on it AFAIK. I wonder if Musk is doing this or announcing it for related reasons. Certainly Trump has a history, even in his short tenure, of pressuring businesses into announcements that suit his agenda. And the announcement seems to fit Trump's pattern: Impossible, brazen bravado. (Musk gives the impossible some credibility, but that's what is meant by lending someone your credibility.) It's speculative, but it's also sad and a bad sign when we must look for government interference in the free market at this level, to provide propaganda for the President.
- Maultasche 10y ago
  NASA agreed to do a study to see if they could place humans on the test flight. That seems to me like the NASA equivalent of saying "Sure, I'll look into that" while trying to not look horrified. I'm pretty sure that study will conclude that this is a bad idea.
  - hackuser 10y ago
    I sure hope so! I wouldn't want to be on that flight. The NASA article brought to mind a story of a well-known Cosmonaut knowingly launching in an unreliable vehicle because the politicians insisted. He died. He flew because he didn't want his understudy to be killed in his place. (I'm sure someone on HN knows the story better than I do ...).
    - rst 10y ago
      That sounds like Soyuz 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_1
  - godelski 10y ago
avmich 10y ago
> "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." SpaceX at its usual :) . By which criteria Energiya is less powerful vehicle to reach orbit than Falcon Heavy?
- wavefunction 10y ago
  I think it's a bit of weird language. From comparing what specs I could find Energia had significantly greater LEO capacity (200% of Falcon Heavy), and a slight advantage in GTO payloads, a slight disadvantage at trans-lunar payloads and has no capacity at all for trans-Martian payloads where the Falcon Heavy can deliver 14,000kg/14 tonnes/30864.717lbs of payload. So I think they are claiming that title due to Energia dropping off after trans-lunar ranges assuming Falcon Heavy reaches "orbit" and then travels further beyond.
rodionos 10y ago
Shouldn't they consider a staged approach, not unlike FDA trials. Start with a Laika dog, proceed with a chimp, as all other space programs have done in the past? Also, if this succeeds, what happens to Google's moonshot projects? Is rebranding in the works?
- M_Grey 10y ago
  Probably they should. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13745315 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13745315
  - godelski 10y ago
    Well there's a huge difference when talking about radiation exposures going to the moon and Mars. For one you don't expect a solar event to happen, you really hope one doesn't, when going to the moon. Going to Mars you expect a few. With cosmic radiation we're talking about the difference between a few days and a year. Plus you have to have pretty good shielding when crossing the Van Allen belts. You can consider the Apollo missions the trial phases. We learned a lot there.
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      I'm less worried about this mission, and more than it's going to give people an (increasingly) false confidence that we're ready for Mars.
      - godelski 10y ago
        Ah, in that context, yes. We'll have to see a lot about the flight performance of the Heavy and whatever crew capsule they come up with. I would imagine they would do it similar to how the Apollo missions were done. First you do the dress rehearsal where no one lands. They could use that mission to put supplies in orbit as well. For Mars, they might need more than one. I'll be interested in what they come up with, but I still think their goal of 2025 is pretty quick. Doable, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
ChrisBland 10y ago
Best news I've heard today, if I had that much $ I too would want to do something that only a handful of humans have ever experienced. If Elon reads this I will give you everything in my bank account and everything I will earn in the next 5 years to orbit the earth. It has been a dream of mine and seeing the privatization of space flight gets me so excited for the future. Sucks to be my kids as I hope I get to blow their inheritance on a trip to the moon.
CodeSheikh 10y ago
Mission name Apollo-X. Anyone?
ChuckMcM 10y ago
Wow. This sends so many thoughts cascading through my head that I'm dizzy. Some things to consider, China has been working up to getting a space capability to send people to the Moon with the full backing of the government funding, by 2035[1]. They started in 2003. SpaceX was founded in 2002 and they are saying they will fly someone around the moon next year? Dragon has the deltaV to land on the moon (not sure if it has enough to get off again though) and SpaceX certainly has the expertise in building spacecraft that land. The next person to take a picture of the Earth from moon may not be on a government funded mission. That one really blows my mind. For so long it was only countries that could do something like that, now it is nearly within reach of individuals. The UN has treaties about claiming (or not) the moon by a nation state, but there isn't anything about a privately funded and established outpost that wants to declare independence. All this time I imagined that some country would establish a base there, and grudgingly offer up some space for non-state use, and now there is this possibility of a private facility that states have to ask permission to visit? That is priceless. [1] http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2016/04/29/man-on-the-moon-china-sets-lunar-mission-date/ http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2016/04/29/man-on-the-moo...
- hackuser 10y ago
  > The next person to take a picture of the Earth from moon may not be on a government funded mission. Note that the press release says: Most importantly, we would like to thank NASA, without whom this would not be possible. NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which provided most of the funding for Dragon 2 development, is a key enabler for this mission. Your tax dollars, if you are American, helped pay for this. Thank you and congratulations - if it works out; if not, was it worth the risk? EDIT: In response to many below, remember that the U.S. military isn't the only alternative use of the money. Taxpayers could keep it, or it could go to other programs such as education and health. (Personally, I'd happily pay more taxes for more space exploration, education, health, and military necessary for security.)
  - lettergram 10y ago
    Rockets (or any research) > bombs any day of the week. Yes, my tax dollars going towards research (even indirectly) is better than the way most of my money is spent
ogezi 10y ago
I wonder who the people going on this trip are. Are they billionaires, a rich couple planning a honeymoon. You'd have to be rich to do this right? I also wonder which kind of insurance both Spacex and the individuals have for this. It's amazing that private companies are now doing things that were previously only one by governments and nations. I don't know how this will work out but congratulations to Musk, Spacex and NASA.
- briandear 10y ago
  That's really stretching the definition of private company considering NASA is the major provider of both funding and infrastructure.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - ogezi 10y ago
    A lot of innovation was initially funded by the government especially in Silicon Valley. That said, Spacex is still legally a private company. Many a time, when companies engage in capital intensive business endeavours they need someone to provide some incentive or even build the initial technology. NASA does this here much like DARPA did with the Internet's initial infrastructure.
  - adventured 10y ago
    It's not stretching the definition at all. You can hardly be a large business in any developed nation without having substantial business relationships with various world governments. See: Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, Boeing, Caterpillar, Lockheed Martin, Ford, GM, 3M, Berkshire Hathaway, General Electric, etc. Might as well pretend Medtronic, Pfizer or Johnson & Johnson aren't private, because they do so much business with government healthcare systems.
    - someguydave 10y ago
      I for one consider such companies to be quasi-government organizations. Especially to the degree that their products are purchased by the government via something other than a open market bid.
dalbasal 10y ago
I love that a moon mission is a milestone en route to SpaceX' moonshot, not the moonshot itself. We need new idioms for these people.
- rkuykendall-com 10y ago
  It may seem less weird as trips to the moon become more common. We still use "flew too close to the sun" even though human powered flight at high altitudes is now common. It's more about the story of the original moonshot.
  - gydfi 10y ago
    But flying close to the sun is still really bad. It's just we've never got close enough to the sun for it to be a problem.
johngalt 10y ago
Next year seems extremely ambitious. Wouldn't humans next year, mean non-crewed test flight this year?
clock_tower 10y ago
Which would be more expensive: a personal SpaceX flight to the Moon, or personally funding a high-speed rail line from Seattle to Vancouver?
- wmf 10y ago
  Definitely rail, which is something like a zillion dollars per mile. The moon trip is only $40-160M.
  - clock_tower 10y ago
    $40-$160M? I didn't realize just how far the price had fallen for a literal moonshot... Thanks!
clebio 10y ago
> ... two private citizens ... have already paid a significant deposit to do a moon mission. Like the Apollo astronauts before them, these individuals will travel into space carrying the hopes and dreams of all humankind ... Except that these two private citizens are presumably absurdly wealthy. Whereas the nationalize space program which brought forth the Apollo mission gave all private citizens, as well as schoolchildren for generations, hope and aspirational outlooks. Whereas the current national situation in the US, with respect to primary-school education and government-supported science is quite dire. So things are not at all hopeful right now, and many of us suffer nightmares of violence and deportation. So, there's that.
- gozur88 10y ago
  >Except that these two private citizens are presumably absurdly wealthy. Whereas the nationalize space program which brought forth the Apollo mission gave all private citizens, as well as schoolchildren for generations, hope and aspirational outlooks. I doubt it's any more difficult to get absurdly wealthy than to become an astronaut.
  - zardo 10y ago
    I'm sure they only sell you a ticket if you pulled yourself up out of the slums by your own bootstraps. No old money allowed.
    - gozur88 10y ago
      What's your point?
      - peteretep 10y ago
        Being born wealthy doesn't require much expended effort from the recipient of the wealth.
        gozur88 10y ago
Gravityloss 10y ago
I find this schedule very very unlikely. No humans have flown in the Dragon at all yet. Also none on any of SpaceX:s rockets. There have been lots of launch and pad failures. I'm cheering for SpaceX for doing more towards spacefaring, but I'm very skeptical and think this will, at least, end up being negative PR to them, and, at worst, a lot more.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  They had failures, but they're going forward. They launched again recently, and nailed the landing, again. That said, I suppose we need to apply Elon Time coefficient here, and the Moon mission will end up being in 2019 / 2020. Still, I'm very excited, because for the first time in my life, the possibility of humans going to the Moon again within my lifetime feels actually real.
  - kk_cz 10y ago
    You didn't believe the Chinese when they said they would be there by 2035? :)
- misnome 10y ago
  I'm glad to see somebody questioning the timescale. There is definitely a huge blind spot around Musk around here.
  - aerovistae 10y ago
    I'm the biggest fan of Elon there is, I'm pretty sure, but this still makes me nervous. The timescale is bullshit-- the past two failures have both pushed things back a ways, and at this point I'm not optimistic there won't be more failures soon (although I strongly believe they'll succeed completely in the long term regardless). Things would have to go perfectly for this timescale to actually happen. But what really makes me nervous is the thought of it going wrong and people dying. That would be pretty terrible. I feel like they need to do a lot more testing before they can send anyone around the moon in a mere 18-20months. That's just too soon. F9 is still having confusing failures after years in service. Falcon Heavy hasn't even flown once yet, nor Dragon 2.
grouplinkdave 10y ago
About 20 years ago as a young engineer I was given the opportunity to propose some solutions to NASA, and was invited to the Kennedy Space Center’s LCC for the presentation. Prior to meeting with the exec team at the LCC they took me on a tour of the VAB, where I saw all the operations and was allowed to take digital images of some of the vehicle assembly and maintenance operations to demonstrate possible improvements. Such great energy at the whole KSC. What an honor to be there to feel that passion and gratitude! Last month I was again at the KSC and LCC as a tourist, and the energy was just a minute fraction of what I'd seen 20 years before. We need this kind of vision [from SpaceX and others, e.g., like this other NASA-based article today with the young engineer comments, who did the hydroponics in microgravity at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13743196 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13743196 ] to push science and technology beyond the video game and entertainment markets. Congratulations to SpaceX, the microgravity hydroponics engineer, and the others with vision who are once-again elevating the bright eyes of brilliant youth, scientists and engineers.
Animats 10y ago
So when will they launch a Falcon Heavy with a Dragon, unmanned? They've got to try that first. Will the initial Falcon Heavy test flight carry a Dragon spacecraft?
mLuby 10y ago
Count on SpaceX to renew faith in humanity. ^_^
ironchief 10y ago
It is very likely Steve Jurveston. 1. In a comment about the announcement alluded to it as a "recurring dream"[1] 2. 5 years ago, described a moon orbit as "when I plan to fly in space. I have two specific missions in mind"[2] 3. SpaceX Board Member and investor 4. Has the money 5. Knows Elon "Mr Musk declined to reveal their identities, only saying that they knew each other"[3] 6. Is "nobody from Hollywood" 7. Liked this comment on his FB wall "Can I tag along?!? Ahhhhh!!!"[4] [1]https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/23226164619 https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/23226164619 [2]https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/7659357718 https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/7659357718 [3]http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39111030 http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39111030 [4]https://www.facebook.com/jurvetson/posts/10158310863860611?comment_id=10158311172520611&include_parent=false https://www.facebook.com/jurvetson/posts/10158310863860611?c...
- walkingolof 10y ago
  5) According to another source, he did not say that he knew any of them, but rather that the two passengers knew each other. Source: http://spaceflightnow.com/2017/02/27/spacex-to-send-two-private-citizens-around-the-moon-and-back/ http://spaceflightnow.com/2017/02/27/spacex-to-send-two-priv...
  - elsewhen 10y ago
    can you provide the exact quote from the article that indicates that musk does not know the two passengers? i read through the article twice and cannot seem to find it. perhaps the publication removed a sentence?
- troymc 10y ago
  In this photo from 2012, he's inside the Shuttle White Room at the end of the Swing Arm on Pad 39A: https://flic.kr/p/bzh1Ju https://flic.kr/p/bzh1Ju
bluebeard 10y ago
https://kerbalspaceprogram.com/en/ https://kerbalspaceprogram.com/en/
vanattab 10y ago
Trumps going to space!
Mendenhall 10y ago
I want to know what the insurance company of the private citizens says to this.
- rev_null 10y ago
  I'm more interested in knowing how google plans to insure both Larry and Sergey while they're engaging on such a dangerous mission.
sorinn 10y ago
I hope its Donald Trump
joshuakcockrell 10y ago
> This presents an opportunity for humans to return to deep space for the first time in 45 years and they will travel faster and further into the Solar System than any before them. Shocking that it's been this long. There is an entire generation that hasn't seen man make it into deep space.
stevespang 10y ago
Do you see the comments on one site: "about 2 rich fat cats all ego-ed out who paid Space X tens of millions, just smiling from ear to ear and gloating that the whole world is watching them make history, and the rest of us "lowlanders" have to watch them with envy - - only to have it by mere chance turn into a Roman spectacle - - - - of the whole world watching as they get bar-be-qued in space, never to see earth again. A massive crowd will be assembled to attempt a Guinness book of world records, to moon the stars with bare asses all in unison in a soccer stadium just as they blast off into space, yelling out like the Romans did at the coliseum: "We salute you those who are about to DIE !" then post it on YouTube !
maverick_iceman 10y ago
No one would be happier than me if they pull this off. However, I think the timeline is super ambitious. They never had to deal with human passengers till now, meaning they have to develop all that skill set in 1.5 years. Even with significant help from NASA/Russia this sounds like an extremely tall order to me.
yCloser 10y ago
not landing that's cool, but kerbal-easy
_pmf_ 10y ago
"Next Year" in Musk time; that's about 2022.
jlebrech 10y ago
the should send mining robots to build a base unmanned first.
rbanffy 10y ago
Wasn't being able to support and protect the crew beyond LEO the "killer feature" of the Orion? If you can do it with a Dragon, what niche is Orion left with?
jaddood 10y ago
So basically it's the government using private institutions for space too now. Welcome! (Sarcastic)
ChrisjayHenn 10y ago
So it seems the big challenge with landing and taking off from the moon is carrying that much fuel. A robotic module on the moon that converts water, carbon and sunlight to rocket fuel should solve that problem. Is anyone else imagining the mission is going to discretely drop such a module when it's in the moon's shadow or do I just have an overactive imagination?
- kk_cz 10y ago
  well, all you have to do now is get all that water and carbon to the moon, I guess.
tatoalo 10y ago
I think that, as Elon pointed out, it can really be an interesting source of income to deploy entirely on the "Mars Project". I really root for 'em even though I know that China has started working on a similar business-model-trip back in '03 and they still haven't made any public announcement or published a precise launch year...
Shivetya 10y ago
so much opportunity for celebration and at the same so much opportunity to destroy the company. hope they do a few dry runs that we get to watch because while this could be a publicity event of incredible benefit it can just as easily backfire
jbmorgado 10y ago
Well in a way these are fantastic news. But on the other side they are totally reckless news. What if the Sun has a SEP event during that period? Everyone on board will die in the period from hours to days from exposure to radiation. We presently have absolutely no knowledge on how to predict that this will happen or to protect a ship in case it happens. The Moon missions where done before we knew of the existence of SEPs and fortunately we were lucky... but we are not supposed to just rely on luck now that we know they exist.
kbenson 10y ago
So, what happens when you take a moon hoaxer, and I mean a really ardent believer, and fly them around the moon? Presumably they've already seen much of the evidence we've been there multiple times before and discounted it in lieu of some more more fanciful (in our eyes) explanation. Does that shatter when you're looking at the moon through a porthole, or do you explain it away somehow? I find it interesting, because usually conspiracy theorists can't really be presented with enough hard evidence to replicate the scenario in question.

1747 points by runesoerensen 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

A quote from an article on the Verge says "Musk declined to comment on the exact cost of the trip, but said it was “comparable” or a little more than the cost of a crewed mission to the International Space Station." Does anyone have a rough estimate how much a manned mission to the ISS currently costs?

goshx 10y ago
$82 millions according to the announcer at Kennedy Space Center while I was waiting for the Falcon 9 launch.
- redant 10y ago
  Are you talking about unmanned mission? Because he specifically mentioned crewed mission.
  - goshx 10y ago
    I am talking about the price Russia charges the US to send one human to the ISS. I guess the announcer wasn't correct. That amount would be for 2018. http://www.businessinsider.com/astronaut-cost-per-soyuz-seat-2016-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/astronaut-cost-per-soyuz-seat...
trafficlight 10y ago
http://www.businessinsider.com/space-travel-per-seat-cost-soyuz-2016-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/space-travel-per-seat-cost-so... Russia currently charges $58 million per seat to the ISS, with the price expected to increase to $80ish million by 2018.
plttn 10y ago
If I remember correctly, the price of a Soyuz seat is around $20,000,000USD for tourists, with NASA's price to fly on Soyuz being much higher per seat.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
bobsky 10y ago
Appears to be around $80M per seat. Great graph of how it increase from $20M in 2008 to $80M today after NASA permanently grounded its space shuttles: http://www.businessinsider.com/space-travel-per-seat-cost-soyuz-2016-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/space-travel-per-seat-cost-so...
westbywest 10y ago
At least from NASA's standpoint, looks like they budget single-digit $Billions for human spaceflight, out of a yearly budget in the range of $18B. I'm not sure how cleanly that can be broken down per-mission, since stays aboard the ISS can now exceed 12 months. https://spaceflightnow.com/2015/02/02/nasa-outlines-fy-2016-budget-request/ https://spaceflightnow.com/2015/02/02/nasa-outlines-fy-2016-...
reddog 10y ago
For perspective, it cost about $200 million to get your name on an America's Cup trophy. So as billionaire vanity projects go, this is pretty reasonable.
netcraft 10y ago
On a different end of the spectrum, Emily Calandrelli is giving a $35M figure for the last ISS ticket: https://twitter.com/TheSpaceGal/status/836333012056842240 https://twitter.com/TheSpaceGal/status/836333012056842240

skosuri 10y ago

I wonder who the two people are.

agildehaus 10y ago
Hope they like each other.
adanto6840 10y ago
I wonder what the life insurance policy costs -- though perhaps in this case these individuals don't need one due to their existing wealth. I guess super-wealthy people just "self insure" eh?

runesoerensen 10y ago

> We are excited to announce that SpaceX has been approached to fly two private citizens on a trip around the moon late next year. They have already paid a significant deposit to do a moon mission. Can't wait to hear who booked this trip! Definitely one of the coolest ways to spend a lot of superfluous money :)

MrZongle2 10y ago
Maybe Richard Garriot wants to survey his property (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Garriott#Other_accomplishments_and_interests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Garriott#Other_accompl...) from near-lunar orbit. ;)
- nkoren 10y ago
  "Not me... yet!" https://twitter.com/RichardGarriott/status/836327841876738048 https://twitter.com/RichardGarriott/status/83632784187673804...
- easytiger 10y ago
  interestingly his wife was president of a (now failed) space tech company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_Dynamics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_Dynamics
solidr53 10y ago
Same! I also think that spending money on a roundtrip to the moon is way better for humanity than spending it on champagne, caviar and cars.
- coryfklein 10y ago
  Not sure everyone will see it that way. One could look at it as taking the whole "wasteful private jet" to the extreme. Think of the sheer amount of fuel burned in the earth's atmosphere so a rich guy can fly in space. At least, I expect many will spin it that way.

danmoreno 10y ago

zuck and priscilla?

monomyth 10y ago
Donald and Vladimir?
- narcilian 10y ago
  I don't think the world is that lucky.
- anonymfus 10y ago
  That would be very Moscow 2042-ish.
- simplemath 10y ago
  "We seem to have somehow miscalculated our trajectories and the vehicle is now permanently locked in low lunar orbit forever with no recourse. Sorry for the inconvenience."
- Apocryphon 10y ago
  2001 Nights - Night 1: Earthglow
Nokinside 10y ago
Zuck going around the moon would make sense. He clearly has political ambitions, but he must acquire personality. Being an space-tourist would help.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  How on Earth (pun intended) would that help?
  - enra 10y ago
    Same way politician candidates often acquire some military background. It builds their profile and they have something to tell stories about. It doesn't really matter what they actually did there. In modern times, most people at least in the US doesn't have military experience and they tend to give it a somewhat mythical status. Those who do, can feel that the candidate relates to them. So it can be an rhetoric for anything "you know, the time was I went around moon, this happened, which made me realize that x is more important than y". No-one can really discount that experience easily or politely since they haven't done that, and somewhat more admirable and mythical than creating a social networking website.

DanielBMarkham 10y ago

Huge SpaceX fan here, but I've heard from various news sources that the company is famous for aggressively posting dates and then slowly letting them slide. Might that be the case here? (Still, even if it's 2 or 3 years, wow!)

cletusw 10y ago
The main factor supporting their claim is that they have a very strong incentive to be ferrying crew to/from the ISS around this time, so barring any big mishaps with Falcon Heavy (supposed to be ready this summer/fall), all the pieces should be in place if not by next year, then certainly just a year or two later. Which, as you mentioned, is just as impressive!
- DanielBMarkham 10y ago
  This is what I'm referring to: "...The draft report from the GAO, which is Congress’ investigative arm, also concluded that neither SpaceX nor the Boeing Co. is likely to conduct regular space taxi flights to the space station by 2018..." http://www.geekwire.com/2017/gao-journal-spacex-rocket-turbopump-cracking/ http://www.geekwire.com/2017/gao-journal-spacex-rocket-turbo...
  - cletusw 10y ago
    Could be true, but SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell challenged that report directly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjXYSJF-7Cs&t=16m31s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjXYSJF-7Cs&t=16m31s
    - thelambentonion 10y ago
      Shotwell's response is in the best interests of her company, but SpaceX is (as well as Boeing) woefully behind on a reasonable timeline to reach human-rated flight for both their rocket and crew module. We should have learned from both the early Apollo program, and the Shuttle failures, that human lives shouldn't be treated as expendable capital in this industry. Both SpaceX's current announcement, and the US Gov's desire to put humans on the first flight SLS flight, are deeply troubling in that regard.

robtaylor 10y ago

...and back!

ktta 10y ago

I wonder if it is going to be only two people who are going to go. Will they add more people if they come forward with significant amount of money too? Seems to me like the cost of taking in another person will be negligible in comparison to the funding they could contribute. This is literally a one-in-a-lifetime experience

trafficlight 10y ago
Probably not a ton of extra space for a multi-day trip?
- olex 10y ago
  That's probably it. Not as much space I think, but life support for an extended period of time. This is one key difference between Dragon/CST-100 and Orion: the latter is designed for extended deep space travel with full crew, and can support them accordingly, while the former are primarily LEO taxis with more limited deep space capabilities.
  - nickik 10y ago
    The problem with the Orion is that there simply aren't many useful missions. Orion can also go around the moon, just like Dragon 2, but for both craft that is the end of the line (at least for Crewed versions). The difference is that Orion cost about as much as Dragon 1, Dragon 2, Falcon and Falcon Heavy combined. If we add the cost of a SLS launch it goes into another dimension of cost.
strictnein 10y ago
Others will likely follow, per SpaceX, but I think this is a two person ride. > "Other flight teams have also expressed strong interest and we expect more to follow."
edsouza 10y ago
The two private citizens will need a support team in capsule unless they are experienced astronauts and have the technical skills to learn all the systems on the dragon crew capsule.

Udik 10y ago

So, hmm, we wants to send people around the moon, a year and a half from now, with a rocket he never tested and with a capsule that never flew? I expect half of the directors of SpaceX to resign in the next two days...

agildehaus 10y ago
Not sure how this differs from Apollo.
- amalag 10y ago
  Apollo had manned space missions before that.
  - _ph_ 10y ago
    SpaceX plans to do this Moon mission only after they had manned missions to the ISS.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- Udik 10y ago
  The cold war? A national effort? Dead crews during the project? I mean, I'm half joking, I believe that it is a possible objective, as much as it is possible to manufacture 500k Model 3s a year.. next year. Possible, but a monumental effort and something on which Musk strongly disagrees even with the top managers in his own companies.
  - nickik 10y ago
    The space ship is already being developed for the Commercial Crew program. The rocket is a new rocket but with the same engines and the same upper stage. This does not seem so impossible. A couple of delays will happen, but all in all, there is no fundamental problem.

suprgeek 10y ago

While this feat depends on hitting a lot of intermediate milestones - Falcon Heavy Test, Crew Dragon Unmanned to ISS, Crew Dragon manned to ISS, etc, there is no "show-stopper" that is apparent right now. I like how they have avoided committing to the much harder "landing on the Moon and then return" scenario.

dwringer 10y ago
We choose to not go to the moon, but do the other things, not because they are hard, but because they are relatively easy, and we can make a quick buck.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- rhcom2 10y ago
  Also the moon is pretty boring and Elon Musk likes exciting things.
  - Svezik 10y ago
    Making an automobile that people actually want to buy would be exciting.
    - ctdonath 10y ago
      There were how many $1000 deposits on Model 3s?
    - bplsports92 10y ago
      I assume this is a joke?
  - trafficlight 10y ago
    How I wish I could experience the boredom of flying around the Moon.
- 10y ago

c-slice 10y ago

I wonder what NASA is thinking about this? The NASA Commercial Crew program which helped fund the development of the Dragon was funded for manned flight to the ISS. I'm curious if they see this as part of the project scope?

berberous 10y ago
Read the article: "By also flying privately crewed missions, which NASA has encouraged, long-term costs to the government decline and more flight reliability history is gained, benefiting both government and private missions."
nickik 10y ago
The COTS and Commercial Crew program have specifically been made so that Companies can reuse the hardware for other projects as well. This is the exact thing that NASA has hoped for.

_ph_ 10y ago

This is exciting news. Some time ago, looking at the F9 Heavy, it seemed to me that SpaceX could fly to the moon with it anytime they decided to. Of course their focus is the Mars. But in the day and age of multi-billionaires and the commercial availability of space flights via SpaceX, this makes absolutely sense. Private funding could push space flights much quicker ahead.

davidklemke 10y ago

Absolutely incredible. This will be the furthest that humanity has journeyed away from Earth in a very long time. However it is worth noting that there hasn't been a single crewed Dragon flight yet. There are demonstator flights scheduled for this year though with the first NASA crewed mission slated for May 2018. That's an incredibly aggressive timeline but if anyone can achieve it, SpaceX can. The long duration flight beyond the moon will be a fantastic proving ground, however.

marcofloriano 10y ago
> That's an incredibly aggressive timeline Sometimes i wonder if that's an strategy from the management team to put pressure in the engineers.
- crznp 10y ago
  It seems like a carrot and a stick because it also reinforces the "SpaceX is special" narrative.
- ehnto 10y ago
  In the same way that hitting a stuck bolt with a hammer is a strategy. It applies pressure sure, but you break your tools and the nut gets stripped. It seems to a preferred motivation method though.
  - robotresearcher 10y ago
    It worked before. Kennedy's moon shot speech was 8 years and 2 months before Apollo 11 landed on the moon. The speech was made before the US had put a person in orbit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T1ztqhYQ7g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T1ztqhYQ7g
    - ehnto 10y ago
      It definitely works, and you might argue that when it comes to forwarding humanity, then what of a few exhausted engineers! But in other contexts perhaps not an elegant methodology.

soheil 10y ago

Who are the two "private citizens"? Seems to be mere urge of "universal human exploration" to go around the moon and not landing on it, etc. isn't doing much exploring, but rather taking a lot of risk on a manned spacecraft that has never been tested with people.

obstinate 10y ago
Presumably they will test the spacecraft at least once before sending it out manned. We sent crewed capsules around the moon without landing during the Apollo program too.
- bennyg 10y ago
  They're doing a Falcon Heavy launch beforehand (at least once) before this mission takes place.
Aaronn 10y ago
Well the spacecraft will be tested multiple times before this mission and there are health and fitness tests before departure just like it says there. Both of those were addressed, I think you may have misread this.
- soheil 10y ago
  You're right I misread the testing part. I'd very much still like to know who those people are and what their thought process is.
  - jessriedel 10y ago
    I'd like to know the thought process of people who have this much money and don't want to orbit the moon.
    - soheil 10y ago
      I think you're missing the point, of course in an ideal situation where risk is minimized that would be a good question. But by focusing on money I think you neglected to address the obvious point that I raised namely what if it blows up.

biosoup 10y ago

I'm gonna make my tip, given Elon's history: Sergey Brin and Larry Page Two of his freind rich enough, geeky enough, to go first.

schwarrrtz 10y ago
Something tells me they wouldn't both go on the same trip, given the risk.
- biosoup 10y ago
  yeah, their insurance company would be furious :)
  - mrep 10y ago
    Insurance company? Why would billionaires waste their money or time on insurance?
janywer 10y ago
just imagine the effects on Alphabet's stock price
- biosoup 10y ago
  they don't care, they own majority of voting rights and almost the stocks itself
ErikHuisman 10y ago
I would maybe guess Branson and Bezos as a stunt promoting private space tourism and thereby their space companies :)
- SmellyGeekBoy 10y ago
  Wouldn't that be admitting defeat?

gydfi 10y ago

Just looking up records: the furthest anyone has ever been from Earth is Apollo 13 who passed 158 miles above the lunar surface. I imagine that would be a pretty easy record to break, if you're doing a translunar flight anyway then getting a bit higher doesn't take much more energy (source: played a lot of Kerbal). On the other hand the passengers might prefer a close-up view of the Moon to a record.

pklausler 10y ago
But the moon isn't at a fixed distance. It's possible that one of the other cislunar or landing Apollo missions was more distant, geocentrically, even with their standard 69-mile lunar orbital heights.
- pklausler 10y ago
  Did some more research, and yes, Apollo 13 was indeed the furthest in geocentric distance as well.
  - gydfi 10y ago
    Great, so with good timing we can both get a great view and set a record simultaneously.

skizm 10y ago

Is it still a thing, where going to space makes you infertile due to radiation? I feel like I remember basically once you go into space (male or female) kids are off the table afterwards unless you have frozen your sperm or eggs beforehand. Not sure if that was solved at some point or not.

mburns 10y ago
>A 2005 study Jennings co-authored counted 17 babies born to female astronauts after they had been in space. https://phys.org/news/2011-01-sex-space-houston-problem.html https://phys.org/news/2011-01-sex-space-houston-problem.html
ntumlin 10y ago
According to stack exchange, it doesn't [0]. If that's wrong maybe I can fund a trip to space of my own by selling lead lined boxers. [0] http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/14704/do-astronauts-become-sterile-from-being-in-space-like-on-the-iss http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/14704/do-astronauts...
TimesOldRoman 10y ago
As long as you stay near the Earth (the moon is close enough), our magnetosphere will protect you from radiation. When you get interplanetary, like on a trip to Mars, radiation exposure becomes arguable the most difficult problem to solve.
- acover 10y ago
  Source? > The Mars Radiation Environment Experiment (MARIE) was launched in 2001 in order to collect more data. Estimates are that humans unshielded in interplanetary space would receive annually roughly 400 to 900 mSv (compared to 2.4 mSv on Earth) and that a Mars mission (12 months in flight and 18 months on Mars) might expose shielded astronauts to roughly 500 to 1000 mSv. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_threat_from_cosmic_rays#The_deep-space_radiation_environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_threat_from_cosmic_rays...

manis404 10y ago

I wonder how many refugees could be funded with the amount that they paid. SAD!

gigatexal 10y ago

Finally the tin-foil hats can be satiated when these tourists see the 50-ish year old flag on the moon.

jacquesm 10y ago
60-ish? More like 50-ish. I remember those landings and I'm nowhere near 60. Weirdest thing, I can't delete this comment now that the other comment has been fixed.
- tshannon 10y ago
  Maybe they used an old flag?
- gigatexal 10y ago
  edited.
jonathansizz 10y ago
No amount of data can convince a conspiracy theorist that they're wrong (the new data are just part of the conspiracy). They'll just say the new images are faked, just as they say the original missions were.
lighttower 10y ago
The flags have been bleached white by the unfiltered solar UV due to lack of lunar atmosphere
nickff 10y ago
NASA actually has a post on what the statuses of the flags are; they are probably bleached or disintegrated.[1] Interestingly, I would guess that the flag most likely to have survived would be the one from Apollo 11, because it was too close to the lander, and got knocked over by the ascent module; it may have been covered with dust and protected, but this is only a remote possibility. note: the post says that the LROC shows shadows from the flags, but it seems highly unlikely they are pristine or even intact. [1] https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/ApolloFlags-Condition.html https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/ApolloFlags-Condition.html

iklos55 10y ago

Finally. I am so so hyped for SpaceX's development. Hopefully they can stay afloat to experience stability and a stage where they can sit on funding and provide credit for fusion and/or antimatter research. Glad they're here to give us a glimpse into the future of space travel.

hackuser 10y ago

Note that NASA, I believe at Trump's urging, recently said they would try to place humans on the first flight of the Space Launch System (the new heavy lift rocket) - i.e., no unmanned testing first. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/science/nasa-looks-to-speed-timetable-for-putting-astronauts-in-deep-space.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/science/nasa-looks-to-spe... Is Musk still maintaining a relationship with Trump? When Uber founder Travis Kalanick left Trump's business council, Musk was still on it AFAIK. I wonder if Musk is doing this or announcing it for related reasons. Certainly Trump has a history, even in his short tenure, of pressuring businesses into announcements that suit his agenda. And the announcement seems to fit Trump's pattern: Impossible, brazen bravado. (Musk gives the impossible some credibility, but that's what is meant by lending someone your credibility.) It's speculative, but it's also sad and a bad sign when we must look for government interference in the free market at this level, to provide propaganda for the President.

Maultasche 10y ago
NASA agreed to do a study to see if they could place humans on the test flight. That seems to me like the NASA equivalent of saying "Sure, I'll look into that" while trying to not look horrified. I'm pretty sure that study will conclude that this is a bad idea.
- hackuser 10y ago
  I sure hope so! I wouldn't want to be on that flight. The NASA article brought to mind a story of a well-known Cosmonaut knowingly launching in an unreliable vehicle because the politicians insisted. He died. He flew because he didn't want his understudy to be killed in his place. (I'm sure someone on HN knows the story better than I do ...).
  - rst 10y ago
    That sounds like Soyuz 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_1
- godelski 10y ago

avmich 10y ago

> "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." SpaceX at its usual :) . By which criteria Energiya is less powerful vehicle to reach orbit than Falcon Heavy?

wavefunction 10y ago
I think it's a bit of weird language. From comparing what specs I could find Energia had significantly greater LEO capacity (200% of Falcon Heavy), and a slight advantage in GTO payloads, a slight disadvantage at trans-lunar payloads and has no capacity at all for trans-Martian payloads where the Falcon Heavy can deliver 14,000kg/14 tonnes/30864.717lbs of payload. So I think they are claiming that title due to Energia dropping off after trans-lunar ranges assuming Falcon Heavy reaches "orbit" and then travels further beyond.

rodionos 10y ago

Shouldn't they consider a staged approach, not unlike FDA trials. Start with a Laika dog, proceed with a chimp, as all other space programs have done in the past? Also, if this succeeds, what happens to Google's moonshot projects? Is rebranding in the works?

M_Grey 10y ago
Probably they should. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13745315 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13745315
- godelski 10y ago
  Well there's a huge difference when talking about radiation exposures going to the moon and Mars. For one you don't expect a solar event to happen, you really hope one doesn't, when going to the moon. Going to Mars you expect a few. With cosmic radiation we're talking about the difference between a few days and a year. Plus you have to have pretty good shielding when crossing the Van Allen belts. You can consider the Apollo missions the trial phases. We learned a lot there.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    I'm less worried about this mission, and more than it's going to give people an (increasingly) false confidence that we're ready for Mars.
    - godelski 10y ago
      Ah, in that context, yes. We'll have to see a lot about the flight performance of the Heavy and whatever crew capsule they come up with. I would imagine they would do it similar to how the Apollo missions were done. First you do the dress rehearsal where no one lands. They could use that mission to put supplies in orbit as well. For Mars, they might need more than one. I'll be interested in what they come up with, but I still think their goal of 2025 is pretty quick. Doable, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

ChrisBland 10y ago

Best news I've heard today, if I had that much $ I too would want to do something that only a handful of humans have ever experienced. If Elon reads this I will give you everything in my bank account and everything I will earn in the next 5 years to orbit the earth. It has been a dream of mine and seeing the privatization of space flight gets me so excited for the future. Sucks to be my kids as I hope I get to blow their inheritance on a trip to the moon.

CodeSheikh 10y ago

Mission name Apollo-X. Anyone?

ChuckMcM 10y ago

Wow. This sends so many thoughts cascading through my head that I'm dizzy. Some things to consider, China has been working up to getting a space capability to send people to the Moon with the full backing of the government funding, by 2035[1]. They started in 2003. SpaceX was founded in 2002 and they are saying they will fly someone around the moon next year? Dragon has the deltaV to land on the moon (not sure if it has enough to get off again though) and SpaceX certainly has the expertise in building spacecraft that land. The next person to take a picture of the Earth from moon may not be on a government funded mission. That one really blows my mind. For so long it was only countries that could do something like that, now it is nearly within reach of individuals. The UN has treaties about claiming (or not) the moon by a nation state, but there isn't anything about a privately funded and established outpost that wants to declare independence. All this time I imagined that some country would establish a base there, and grudgingly offer up some space for non-state use, and now there is this possibility of a private facility that states have to ask permission to visit? That is priceless. [1] http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2016/04/29/man-on-the-moon-china-sets-lunar-mission-date/ http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2016/04/29/man-on-the-moo...

hackuser 10y ago
> The next person to take a picture of the Earth from moon may not be on a government funded mission. Note that the press release says: Most importantly, we would like to thank NASA, without whom this would not be possible. NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which provided most of the funding for Dragon 2 development, is a key enabler for this mission. Your tax dollars, if you are American, helped pay for this. Thank you and congratulations - if it works out; if not, was it worth the risk? EDIT: In response to many below, remember that the U.S. military isn't the only alternative use of the money. Taxpayers could keep it, or it could go to other programs such as education and health. (Personally, I'd happily pay more taxes for more space exploration, education, health, and military necessary for security.)
- lettergram 10y ago
  Rockets (or any research) > bombs any day of the week. Yes, my tax dollars going towards research (even indirectly) is better than the way most of my money is spent

ogezi 10y ago

I wonder who the people going on this trip are. Are they billionaires, a rich couple planning a honeymoon. You'd have to be rich to do this right? I also wonder which kind of insurance both Spacex and the individuals have for this. It's amazing that private companies are now doing things that were previously only one by governments and nations. I don't know how this will work out but congratulations to Musk, Spacex and NASA.

briandear 10y ago
That's really stretching the definition of private company considering NASA is the major provider of both funding and infrastructure.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- ogezi 10y ago
  A lot of innovation was initially funded by the government especially in Silicon Valley. That said, Spacex is still legally a private company. Many a time, when companies engage in capital intensive business endeavours they need someone to provide some incentive or even build the initial technology. NASA does this here much like DARPA did with the Internet's initial infrastructure.
- adventured 10y ago
  It's not stretching the definition at all. You can hardly be a large business in any developed nation without having substantial business relationships with various world governments. See: Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, Boeing, Caterpillar, Lockheed Martin, Ford, GM, 3M, Berkshire Hathaway, General Electric, etc. Might as well pretend Medtronic, Pfizer or Johnson & Johnson aren't private, because they do so much business with government healthcare systems.
  - someguydave 10y ago
    I for one consider such companies to be quasi-government organizations. Especially to the degree that their products are purchased by the government via something other than a open market bid.

dalbasal 10y ago

I love that a moon mission is a milestone en route to SpaceX' moonshot, not the moonshot itself. We need new idioms for these people.

rkuykendall-com 10y ago
It may seem less weird as trips to the moon become more common. We still use "flew too close to the sun" even though human powered flight at high altitudes is now common. It's more about the story of the original moonshot.
- gydfi 10y ago
  But flying close to the sun is still really bad. It's just we've never got close enough to the sun for it to be a problem.

johngalt 10y ago

Next year seems extremely ambitious. Wouldn't humans next year, mean non-crewed test flight this year?

clock_tower 10y ago

Which would be more expensive: a personal SpaceX flight to the Moon, or personally funding a high-speed rail line from Seattle to Vancouver?

wmf 10y ago
Definitely rail, which is something like a zillion dollars per mile. The moon trip is only $40-160M.
- clock_tower 10y ago
  $40-$160M? I didn't realize just how far the price had fallen for a literal moonshot... Thanks!

clebio 10y ago

> ... two private citizens ... have already paid a significant deposit to do a moon mission. Like the Apollo astronauts before them, these individuals will travel into space carrying the hopes and dreams of all humankind ... Except that these two private citizens are presumably absurdly wealthy. Whereas the nationalize space program which brought forth the Apollo mission gave all private citizens, as well as schoolchildren for generations, hope and aspirational outlooks. Whereas the current national situation in the US, with respect to primary-school education and government-supported science is quite dire. So things are not at all hopeful right now, and many of us suffer nightmares of violence and deportation. So, there's that.

gozur88 10y ago
>Except that these two private citizens are presumably absurdly wealthy. Whereas the nationalize space program which brought forth the Apollo mission gave all private citizens, as well as schoolchildren for generations, hope and aspirational outlooks. I doubt it's any more difficult to get absurdly wealthy than to become an astronaut.
- zardo 10y ago
  I'm sure they only sell you a ticket if you pulled yourself up out of the slums by your own bootstraps. No old money allowed.
  - gozur88 10y ago
    What's your point?
    - peteretep 10y ago
      Being born wealthy doesn't require much expended effort from the recipient of the wealth.
      - gozur88 10y ago

Gravityloss 10y ago

I find this schedule very very unlikely. No humans have flown in the Dragon at all yet. Also none on any of SpaceX:s rockets. There have been lots of launch and pad failures. I'm cheering for SpaceX for doing more towards spacefaring, but I'm very skeptical and think this will, at least, end up being negative PR to them, and, at worst, a lot more.

TeMPOraL 10y ago
They had failures, but they're going forward. They launched again recently, and nailed the landing, again. That said, I suppose we need to apply Elon Time coefficient here, and the Moon mission will end up being in 2019 / 2020. Still, I'm very excited, because for the first time in my life, the possibility of humans going to the Moon again within my lifetime feels actually real.
- kk_cz 10y ago
  You didn't believe the Chinese when they said they would be there by 2035? :)
misnome 10y ago
I'm glad to see somebody questioning the timescale. There is definitely a huge blind spot around Musk around here.
- aerovistae 10y ago
  I'm the biggest fan of Elon there is, I'm pretty sure, but this still makes me nervous. The timescale is bullshit-- the past two failures have both pushed things back a ways, and at this point I'm not optimistic there won't be more failures soon (although I strongly believe they'll succeed completely in the long term regardless). Things would have to go perfectly for this timescale to actually happen. But what really makes me nervous is the thought of it going wrong and people dying. That would be pretty terrible. I feel like they need to do a lot more testing before they can send anyone around the moon in a mere 18-20months. That's just too soon. F9 is still having confusing failures after years in service. Falcon Heavy hasn't even flown once yet, nor Dragon 2.

grouplinkdave 10y ago

About 20 years ago as a young engineer I was given the opportunity to propose some solutions to NASA, and was invited to the Kennedy Space Center’s LCC for the presentation. Prior to meeting with the exec team at the LCC they took me on a tour of the VAB, where I saw all the operations and was allowed to take digital images of some of the vehicle assembly and maintenance operations to demonstrate possible improvements. Such great energy at the whole KSC. What an honor to be there to feel that passion and gratitude! Last month I was again at the KSC and LCC as a tourist, and the energy was just a minute fraction of what I'd seen 20 years before. We need this kind of vision [from SpaceX and others, e.g., like this other NASA-based article today with the young engineer comments, who did the hydroponics in microgravity at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13743196 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13743196 ] to push science and technology beyond the video game and entertainment markets. Congratulations to SpaceX, the microgravity hydroponics engineer, and the others with vision who are once-again elevating the bright eyes of brilliant youth, scientists and engineers.

Animats 10y ago

So when will they launch a Falcon Heavy with a Dragon, unmanned? They've got to try that first. Will the initial Falcon Heavy test flight carry a Dragon spacecraft?

mLuby 10y ago

Count on SpaceX to renew faith in humanity. ^_^

ironchief 10y ago

It is very likely Steve Jurveston. 1. In a comment about the announcement alluded to it as a "recurring dream"[1] 2. 5 years ago, described a moon orbit as "when I plan to fly in space. I have two specific missions in mind"[2] 3. SpaceX Board Member and investor 4. Has the money 5. Knows Elon "Mr Musk declined to reveal their identities, only saying that they knew each other"[3] 6. Is "nobody from Hollywood" 7. Liked this comment on his FB wall "Can I tag along?!? Ahhhhh!!!"[4] [1]https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/23226164619 https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/23226164619 [2]https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/7659357718 https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/7659357718 [3]http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39111030 http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39111030 [4]https://www.facebook.com/jurvetson/posts/10158310863860611?comment_id=10158311172520611&include_parent=false https://www.facebook.com/jurvetson/posts/10158310863860611?c...

walkingolof 10y ago
5) According to another source, he did not say that he knew any of them, but rather that the two passengers knew each other. Source: http://spaceflightnow.com/2017/02/27/spacex-to-send-two-private-citizens-around-the-moon-and-back/ http://spaceflightnow.com/2017/02/27/spacex-to-send-two-priv...
- elsewhen 10y ago
  can you provide the exact quote from the article that indicates that musk does not know the two passengers? i read through the article twice and cannot seem to find it. perhaps the publication removed a sentence?
troymc 10y ago
In this photo from 2012, he's inside the Shuttle White Room at the end of the Swing Arm on Pad 39A: https://flic.kr/p/bzh1Ju https://flic.kr/p/bzh1Ju

bluebeard 10y ago

https://kerbalspaceprogram.com/en/ https://kerbalspaceprogram.com/en/

vanattab 10y ago

Trumps going to space!

Mendenhall 10y ago

I want to know what the insurance company of the private citizens says to this.

rev_null 10y ago
I'm more interested in knowing how google plans to insure both Larry and Sergey while they're engaging on such a dangerous mission.

sorinn 10y ago

I hope its Donald Trump

joshuakcockrell 10y ago

> This presents an opportunity for humans to return to deep space for the first time in 45 years and they will travel faster and further into the Solar System than any before them. Shocking that it's been this long. There is an entire generation that hasn't seen man make it into deep space.

stevespang 10y ago

Do you see the comments on one site: "about 2 rich fat cats all ego-ed out who paid Space X tens of millions, just smiling from ear to ear and gloating that the whole world is watching them make history, and the rest of us "lowlanders" have to watch them with envy - - only to have it by mere chance turn into a Roman spectacle - - - - of the whole world watching as they get bar-be-qued in space, never to see earth again. A massive crowd will be assembled to attempt a Guinness book of world records, to moon the stars with bare asses all in unison in a soccer stadium just as they blast off into space, yelling out like the Romans did at the coliseum: "We salute you those who are about to DIE !" then post it on YouTube !

maverick_iceman 10y ago

No one would be happier than me if they pull this off. However, I think the timeline is super ambitious. They never had to deal with human passengers till now, meaning they have to develop all that skill set in 1.5 years. Even with significant help from NASA/Russia this sounds like an extremely tall order to me.

yCloser 10y ago

not landing that's cool, but kerbal-easy

_pmf_ 10y ago

"Next Year" in Musk time; that's about 2022.

jlebrech 10y ago

the should send mining robots to build a base unmanned first.

rbanffy 10y ago

Wasn't being able to support and protect the crew beyond LEO the "killer feature" of the Orion? If you can do it with a Dragon, what niche is Orion left with?

jaddood 10y ago

So basically it's the government using private institutions for space too now. Welcome! (Sarcastic)

ChrisjayHenn 10y ago

So it seems the big challenge with landing and taking off from the moon is carrying that much fuel. A robotic module on the moon that converts water, carbon and sunlight to rocket fuel should solve that problem. Is anyone else imagining the mission is going to discretely drop such a module when it's in the moon's shadow or do I just have an overactive imagination?

kk_cz 10y ago
well, all you have to do now is get all that water and carbon to the moon, I guess.

tatoalo 10y ago

I think that, as Elon pointed out, it can really be an interesting source of income to deploy entirely on the "Mars Project". I really root for 'em even though I know that China has started working on a similar business-model-trip back in '03 and they still haven't made any public announcement or published a precise launch year...

Shivetya 10y ago

so much opportunity for celebration and at the same so much opportunity to destroy the company. hope they do a few dry runs that we get to watch because while this could be a publicity event of incredible benefit it can just as easily backfire

jbmorgado 10y ago

Well in a way these are fantastic news. But on the other side they are totally reckless news. What if the Sun has a SEP event during that period? Everyone on board will die in the period from hours to days from exposure to radiation. We presently have absolutely no knowledge on how to predict that this will happen or to protect a ship in case it happens. The Moon missions where done before we knew of the existence of SEPs and fortunately we were lucky... but we are not supposed to just rely on luck now that we know they exist.

kbenson 10y ago

So, what happens when you take a moon hoaxer, and I mean a really ardent believer, and fly them around the moon? Presumably they've already seen much of the evidence we've been there multiple times before and discounted it in lieu of some more more fanciful (in our eyes) explanation. Does that shatter when you're looking at the moon through a porthole, or do you explain it away somehow? I find it interesting, because usually conspiracy theorists can't really be presented with enough hard evidence to replicate the scenario in question.