This Is Kinda Big News...

[kham]

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

This, is they say , is a BFD
And , a polite, Middle Finger to SLS and Orion, neither of which can reach the moon, never mind land on it. Whereas SpaceX's hardware, with modifications , CAN. Fingers crossed to see this

[jadokast98]

I hate thinking of "Mission Abort" procedure and the like. My last group had their head down about such topix as "defeatist" :-/
When you have a problem walking it's an easy fix. In your car, a little more difficult; slow down, use indicators and pull over. Once you get airborne life gets more complex. I hope their Emergency Procedures are up to snuff.
Are old Apollo missions EPs available as FoIA or Open Source?

[kham]

So far SpaceX and Musk have demonstrated they are adults, and not screwing around. I don't think this will be anything different.
They have several manned flights to the ISS first, so this is not going to be scream-and-leap. Since the Dragon is not configured for landings, nor the Falcon, YET, the mission will likely be a free-return trajectory for proof-of concept; similar to Apollo 8, and 13
No orbit like 8, since Dragon has no SM.
Probably all the data and telemetry they need to review is available

[Duncan Edwards]

Everybody keeps making comparisons to Apollo but really the only similarity is that the moon is involved somewhere. After the second stage shuts down it's Isaac Newton doing the driving. They go up and around the moon and back. Computers are orders of magnitude smaller, more reliable, and there's no need for a massive electro-mechanical whirlygig Apollo style GNC. There's no landing, no orbiting, no spacewalks, and probably little science being done. It's gonna be a hell of a ride and I'd do it tomorrow but it ain't what we had. Yet.

[Mynock]

^^Agree. I'll give them an attaboy but truth is we've been there, done that, 55 years ago, with less computing power than contained in a modern day calculator.
Land on it and establish permanent residency like we should of decades ago, then I'll be impressed.

[Duncan Edwards]

^^Agree. I'll give them an attaboy but truth is we've been there, done that, 55 years ago, with less computing power than contained in a modern day calculator.
Land on it and establish permanent residency like we should of decades ago, then I'll be impressed.

I agree but this is a different category of effort for a different goal. What then required a national effort even to attempt has now been turned into a pricey but still modest tourist cruise. NASA has been officially working on a return to the moon since 2004 and all we've had so far is we can't even get to low earth orbit any more. We have to buy a ride with the Russians. This isn't really about technology but what we can do with direction and the right people leading the way. What's really sad is the money, tens of billions, that NASA has spent on Orion, SLS, Constellation, all the infrastructure, and still hasn't flow anything after nearly 14 years of effort. The current plan isn't even going to put an American back in space on all that effort before 2021.

Focus people, focus. Until we take the decision making out of the hands of politicians we can never hope to leave this rock.

[kham]

^^Agree. I'll give them an attaboy but truth is we've been there, done that, 55 years ago, with less computing power than contained in a modern day calculator.
Land on it and establish permanent residency like we should of decades ago, then I'll be impressed.

Then, you are in luck; Musk, is on record for HATING the 'flags and footprints' mission-type. He definitely wants to land, and erect habs on the lunar surface. And expand on them. It's a given that you'll do way more geology and science, if your surface time is in months, not days. There's nothing magical about going. You just have to decide to go

[nachtjaeger]

Habs under the lunar surface might be better. We're going to be mining for ice (water) and raw materials anyway. There is a lot of Ilmenite (FeTiO3) wihch gives you iron, titanium and some leftover oxygen. Eventually we will need to get a glass factory going up there so we can build nice thick domes to use as greenhouses and habitats. Glass reinforced with titanium mesh will be pretty tough.

^^Agree. I'll give them an attaboy but truth is we've been there, done that, 55 years ago, with less computing power than contained in a modern day calculator.
Land on it and establish permanent residency like we should of decades ago, then I'll be impressed.

Then, you are in luck; Musk, is on record for HATING the 'flags and footprints' mission-type. He definitely wants to land, and erect habs on the lunar surface. And expand on them. It's a given that you'll do way more geology and science, if your surface time is in months, not days. There's nothing magical about going. You just have to decide to go

[kham]

Those would be good, eventually
But inflatable habs, are tech we have right this second. And are in use, right this second on the ISS, even if NASA doesn't like to talk about it, since they are ideologically / politically opposed to the technology. Which is retarded, just on the face of it

[henrybauer]

This will not be one Falcon 9 booster, it will be three Falcon 9's strapped together plus and upgraded second stage or even a third stage as a Falcon Heavy which is supposed to fly sometime late this year. The Dragon 2 capsule has not flown yet, or been man-rated on a Falcon 9. I would say that they, Spacex, are really pushing the Envelope.