"moonshot" reality tv show for $500M?

EricF · Post by **EricF** » Tue May 31, 2011 1:38 pm

Survivor: Space. Tune in to see who gets voted off the space station.

rjaypeters · Post by **rjaypeters** » Tue May 31, 2011 2:20 pm

Well, it's supposed to be a return mission for someone.

EDIT: The "vote-off" idea makes the lottery for a crewmember slot a whole lot less attractive, e.g.: "You are the weakest link! Good-bye!"

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Tue May 31, 2011 4:01 pm

Hmm, the "survivor" concept might actually work.
Astronauts at NASA still have to go through quite a selection process. One could show a simillar (maybe taken to the extreme) selection process for the team of astronauts going on the moon trip.
Maybe one could start out with "normal" Austronaut training on the ground. Then the barf bomber, then a suborbital flight, then a small orbital mission and finall the moon mission. Every time one of the astronauts in spe has to go. It could be really interesting.

rjaypeters · Post by **rjaypeters** » Tue May 31, 2011 5:19 pm

rjaypeters wrote:"You are the weakest link! Good-bye!"

Especially when the inner airlock door opens.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Tue May 31, 2011 5:45 pm

Especially when the inner airlock door opens.

nanananah... nanananah... eheheh, goooood bye...

93143 · Post by **93143** » Tue May 31, 2011 7:54 pm

Lots of wildly optimistic handwaving in this thread...

Skipjack wrote:So why should I doubt that?

Because it takes about 1.87 km/s of rocket delta-V (using MMH/N2O4 at 313 s, that's a mass ratio of ~1.84) to land on the moon, and that's after you've inserted into LLO. No atmosphere, you see... I very much doubt that Dragon's LAS/landing system will have that much; just getting it to clear the Downrange Abort Exclusion Zone (~1200 m/s, or so I hear, though that was Orion on Ares I) will be a tall order in itself. Currently Dragon has something like 500-600 m/s of delta-V...

Elon Musk said Dragon could land on any solid body. He didn't say it could handle the entire delta-V from orbit to surface. That's what heat shields and crasher stages are for.

...refueling might not even be necessary with only 3 people on board.

[*facepalm*] SpaceX isn't magic. To get a capsule with a ~five-ton dry mass down onto the moon and back to LLO again, you'd need about 12 tons (9 cubic metres) of MMH/N2O4. And every pound of equipment and payload would require more than a kilogram of extra propellant on top of that. Dragon doesn't even have that much spare volume, not if you want to fit anything else in, and even if it did, a full Falcon 9 upper stage with a long-duration kit couldn't get the result from LEO to LLO, never mind that something still has to do TEI...

kunkmiester wrote:Certainly less than $1 billion.

Might I remind you that SpaceX has estimated the cost of making the existing Falcon 9 and Dragon a manned system to be $800M-$1B...?

You do need a dedicated lander to land on the moon, especially if you want to be able to get back off. It will almost certainly cost substantially more than $200M to develop, even if SpaceX does it. These are not large numbers in aerospace terms; $200M won't even buy a single 747.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Tue May 31, 2011 8:53 pm

Might I remind you that SpaceX has estimated the cost of making the existing Falcon 9 and Dragon a manned system to be $800M-$1B...?

Only if you insist on having the Launch escape system and manrating according to whatever papertrail NASA requires.
I also believe that it was a lot less actually. I have to look that up again.

Because it takes about 1.87 km/s of rocket delta-V (using MMH/N2O4 at 313 s, that's a mass ratio of ~1.84) to land on the moon, and that's after you've inserted into LLO.

I did not have the math at hand, as I mentioned. So thanks for providing that.

I very much doubt that Dragon's LAS/landing system will have that much;

That I dont know. All I have is what Elon Musk stated, who does very much want to land on the moon and other planets. I do know that.

Currently Dragon has something like 500-600 m/s of delta-V...

Currently Dragon does not have the proposed LES. So they would need roughly 3 to 4 times as much in order to land on the moon. Well that does not seem to be prohibitively much...

Elon Musk said Dragon could land on any solid body. He didn't say it could handle the entire delta-V from orbit to surface. That's what heat shields and crasher stages are for.

Well he was referring to the powered landing that they were planning for Dragon based on the LES, when he said that. I admit that all that is very vague and I guess that it would be prudent to simply wait for the final result and more information before going on with pointless speculation about how much delta -V a system will bring that has not even been built yet. So yeah, I am guilty of probably unfounded optimism here.

kunkmiester · Post by **kunkmiester** » Tue May 31, 2011 11:47 pm

Might I remind you that SpaceX has estimated the cost of making the existing Falcon 9 and Dragon a manned system to be $800M-$1B...?

Also remember that Musk is amortizing his development costs, and I'd expect this to be too. Might make the Dragon missions a tad more expensive, but still manageable.

There has already been quite a bit of work on lunar landers, there's an X-prize for one don't forget. A single stage down-and-up-again shouldn't be unreasonable, though a two stage design might be more reasonable to start with. Two or three people with a pile of equipment or six or so people. Single stage lander would be pretty nice to have if you're starting a permanent base.

A base is appealing, though the show wouldn't be focused on that--it would provide publicity, which will attract investment, and let you get some mileage out of testing some of the techs. The transfer vehicle, for example, is pretty much a manned orbital laboratory, and with a rocket on it, it could potentially even service GEO satellites. That's not to mention my particular design is readily expandable for trips beyond the moon.

First season might start with selecting people to get in such a MOL and do some stuff just in orbit, like service satellites. Make you some more money on top of the show. Then you select a few of your veteran astronauts, pick up a few geologists and those types, and send them to the moon. Later missions when the reality TV has lost it's luster would sell seats to universities and such.

I've been trying to educate myself on 3D printing and other techs for micromanufacturing and such. Several of my ideas would be just as good for building a base or space station. A handful of machines to build a handful of machines(and maybe another iteration), and you have all you need to build literally anything. You probably wouldn't need to land very much, and most of it could probably be "hard landed."

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 8:53 pm

In regards to dragon landing on other planets.
Check that video and pay close attention towards the end. Of course this is SpaceX promo material, but I would assume that they are serious about the powered landing business.
http://www.spacex.com/multimedia/videos.php

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 7:12 pm

A bit more about the use of Dragon as a lander on Mars.
This still does not mean that Dragon is usable as a moon lander, due to the lack of an atmosphere for breaking (though Mars does not have all that much of one either).
http://www.space.com/12489-nasa-mars-li ... ragon.html

DeltaV · Post by **DeltaV** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 9:21 pm

With those nozzles angled like that (to keep the heat shield pristine) they waste about 30% of the thrust.

kunkmiester · Post by **kunkmiester** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 10:57 pm

I think I figured out how to get the show. Since a mission would require a solid crew, and picking each seat wouldn't work, but the stuff to go from orbit to the moon and back is reusable, you'd set out half a dozen missions or so.

Universities and large companies and probably a number of foreign govs would set up teams, paying for a full trip. The show would be a competition for who would go first, with the other teams getting to go later. This would also remove the show as a major source of revenue, meaning the lack of easily available data on how much a reality show makes is less relevant, and you'd not be relying on the show's success to attract investors.