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This is all over the place but on the off chance you missed it, SpaceX's moon tourism plan: http://www.spacex.com/news/2017/02/27/s ... -next-year

Which seems faintly nuts and wildly optimistic given that both Dragon 2 and Falcon Heavy currently haven't flown yet.
Still, good luck, I'd prefer an actual exploration program rather than tourism, but good luck!

?Build it and they will come?
https://mycourses.aalto.fi/pluginfile.p ... 018-21.pdf
There is probable 5000 people in the world that could afford this and I bet at least 50 that would do this trip. If you make it just to low earth orbit they are already spending 20 million a pop just to spend a week in orbit. So one could extrapolate a 6 billion dollar a year business at Hilton in orbit paying back investors at 500%.

NotAPhysicist wrote:This is all over the place but on the off chance you missed it, SpaceX's moon tourism plan: http://www.spacex.com/news/2017/02/27/s ... -next-year

Which seems faintly nuts and wildly optimistic given that both Dragon 2 and Falcon Heavy currently haven't flown yet.
Still, good luck, I'd prefer an actual exploration program rather than tourism, but good luck!

So, these "tourists" could still do the same exploration and observations a NASA crew could do on the same trip.

Most likely, we did not send up a trained geologist until the last flight. And a few bags of moon rock would probably pay for the flight twice over.

Skipjack wrote:

NotAPhysicist wrote:This is all over the place but on the off chance you missed it, SpaceX's moon tourism plan: http://www.spacex.com/news/2017/02/27/s ... -next-year

Which seems faintly nuts and wildly optimistic given that both Dragon 2 and Falcon Heavy currently haven't flown yet.
Still, good luck, I'd prefer an actual exploration program rather than tourism, but good luck!

So, these "tourists" could still do the same exploration and observations a NASA crew could do on the same trip.

Yes, more or less. Still the spirit feels a bit different hey.
Anyway, give the whole flight is going to be automated the tourists are more like paying life support and communication tech testers who happen to get a free trip around the moon. That isn't a bad deal on the SpaceX side

NotAPhysicist wrote:
Yes, more or less. Still the spirit feels a bit different hey.
Anyway, give the whole flight is going to be automated the tourists are more like paying life support and communication tech testers who happen to get a free trip around the moon. That isn't a bad deal on the SpaceX side

Flights with NASA crew inside would be fully automated too.

Quite, not saying they wouldn't be!

Just saying it feels a little sad that this stuff is getting done not because of a more general spirit of exploration, discovery and the desire to get back out there but because a couple of seriously rich people decided it would be fun to take a moon trip. Which is not to underestimate the power and worth of rich people blowing money for kicks to get things happening but it would be nice if we could do some of those things anyway.

Still, if it helps progress Falcon Heavy and Dragon 2 development and gives other people a bit of a kick to get things moving elsewhere then great. Be nice to see the space future finally arriving.

Hopefully Bigelow can make some further progress on those inflatable modules, the test article on the ISS was doing okay last I heard so that's something. Be nice to see FH launching some of the full scale Bigelow modules in the near future, that would seriously increase our in-space real estate.

Space tourism and space exploration should go hand in hand. The airline industry did not take off until a bunch of rich people wanted to fly in comfort. so it will be for the space industry maybe then we can get a decent toilet.

m thinking of the 1800s and British exploration now, albeit most of my knowledge of the subject is Hollywoodized.

It seemed though that exploration, and being the first to the North Pole and Mount Everest and such was pretty much a rich man's hobby. Less for the sake of exploring for exploring's sake, but a combination of something exciting, machismo, etc. Plenty of science and archeology was done, but it wouldn't have happened without some rich guy wanting to do something interesting.

If Spacex were to tap into that, it would make sense and help shape things, and get the people with the real money putting it into something useful.

My understanding is that SpaceX is that kind of thing. Musk wants to personally go to Mars, and SpaceX is his way of doing it himself. Oh, and to make some money helping other folks get into orbit/space while he's doing it.

krenshala wrote:My understanding is that SpaceX is that kind of thing. Musk wants to personally go to Mars, and SpaceX is his way of doing it himself. Oh, and to make some money helping other folks get into orbit/space while he's doing it.

No, Musk actually wants to colonize mars because he thinks making mankind a multi- planetary species is important to guarantee the survival of the species. He has a point, but I don't think technology is quite there yet. Now a moon base, I could see happen very soon.

In my humble opinion mars be our primary goal. Were talking about our colony being self-sustaining. The moon just doesn't have the resources for that. It will always be dependent on a outside source for raw materials and unless we discover a more economic better means of flipping among the planets they are always going to be bound to earth. The moon does have one huge advantage and that is due to its proximity to earth setting up a supply chain that can react quickly to emergencies is possible. Mars on the other hand has all the basic resources necessary to become a self-sustaining city colony state. But it has one huge disadvantage the supply chain could not react quickly in case of emergency like the moon. I suppose it would not hurt to set up a short term developmental colony on the moon's surface/underground but more as a educational experience rather than a permanent colony. But of course if we have cheap enough to orbit than a ONeil colony all the sudden looks very doable and very sustainable.

Next SpaceX launch currently scheduled for 14 March at 0134 eastern time (0634Z). The launch window is from 0134 to 0404 eastern time. This is the EchoStar 23 launch into a geosynchronous transfer orbit, and the first stage is apparently the last expendable F9, having no grid fins or legs to land on.

paperburn1 wrote:But it has one huge disadvantage the supply chain could not react quickly in case of emergency like the moon.

An answer to which is redundancy. Send three colonies' worth of supplies and equipment before the first batch of colonists arrive.

A vast amount of the work I'd be doing by robot first anyway. About the only thing would be the stuff you absolutely need a human to do.

Thusly before human arrive life support systems and other things are running for weeks to months before you even launch, and you have a fix list to take with you.