[HN Gopher] Polaris Program
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Polaris Program
Author : dkyc
Score : 112 points
Date : 2022-02-14 13:16 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (polarisprogram.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (polarisprogram.com)
| caiobegotti wrote:
| This is the juicy part of the whole announcement: "the crew of
| Polaris Dawn will conduct a spacewalk". That's going to be a
| major feat and important milestone for Starship (and Dragon until
| then, of course).
| regnerba wrote:
| Sounds like they will be using SpaceX designed EVA suites, not
| NASA ones (which wouldn't fit through the hatch I don't think).
| [deleted]
| _Microft wrote:
| ... and since Dragon has no airlock, they will either:
|
| (1) have to add one, (2) have actual EVA suits for all crew
| memebers or (3) keep the rest of the crew in their flightsuits
| in the vacuum inside the capsule while the hatch is open during
| the EVA.
|
| If I had to guess, I would think that it is (3). This way they
| wouldn't have to carry a flightsuit and EVA suit for each of
| the crew members. The suits of the other crew members would
| still be connected to the capsule which takes the role of the
| environmental control and life support system.
| twic wrote:
| From the press conference:
|
| > Menon: Since there is not an airlock on Crew Dragon, the
| whole crew will be exposed to the vacuum of space for the
| EVA. [1]
|
| > Gillis: For Polaris, "the suit that we're going to be
| designing will be a single suit that we would launch and then
| similarly use for the EVA." [2]
|
| Sounds to me like one crew member will wear the EVA suit for
| launch and for the EVA, and the other three will wear flight
| suits for launch and while the capsule is depressurised. So
| only one EVA suit, no changing suits in space, no airlock.
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/14932770189680
| 066...
|
| [2] https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/14932739072516
| 218...
| h2odragon wrote:
| https://polarisprogram.com/polaris-program-will-undertake-a-...
|
| I can't tell if this is fundraising or straight up bragging. "We
| raised $240 million for St Jude Children's Hospital" ... by
| spending _how much_? They 're selling swag but that doesn't
| appear to have serious commercial or influence potential.
| MPSimmons wrote:
| They could have spent that much and _not_ donated to St Jude.
| lumost wrote:
| This will mark a huge developmental milestone of privately funded
| human space flight. I don't doubt that NASA's bureaucracy slows
| down human spaceflight progress - but hopefully this project
| sticks the safety protocol. I would strongly prefer to fly on the
| 10th flight of starship over the first flight of Artemis.
| lekevicius wrote:
| Led by Jared Isaacman, CEO of Shift4, who last year was part of
| Inspiration4 mission.
|
| I'm super confused how this programme works. Does Jared want to
| fund all these missions? If not, what is the "team's"
| contribution here?
| thereddaikon wrote:
| What I think is happening,
|
| SpaceX is already developing starship. Regardless of that NASA
| or anyone else wants they will try to make it happen for their
| own purposes. As part of that program there will have to be a
| lot of test flights. SpaceX will need to prove they can do
| things that NASA did decades ago like space walks.
|
| Issacman has a lot of money and wants to be an astronaut. He is
| willing and able to pay SpaceX for flights. Since he has
| already been trained and flown in space he is also a
| conveniently available and willing commercial astronaut that
| they dont have to pay.
|
| On top of that he brings the partnership with Saint Jude which
| is always good PR. Especially when people are being
|
| So Issacman gets his dream of being an astronaut, SpaceX gets
| some good PR out of something they were going to do anyways.
| And Saint Jude gets some donations.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| That about sums it up, plus you can try to get sponsors, like
| a monster truck event. Do a spectacle, get people to pay to
| put their logo on it. Many will say it is all silly, and it
| is, but leveraging the madness of humans to do good (and bad)
| things is what moves history.
| thom wrote:
| Surely a name with a lot of baggage for a rocket?
| fsloth wrote:
| IMO stars names precede the weapon systems that unfortunately
| tarnish their name. I would view this as a chance to eradicate
| the unfortunate association between the star and war.
| jamessb wrote:
| I'm not sure why you're downvoted.
|
| The name immediately makes me think of the submarine-launched
| ballistic missile system that proceeded Trident [1, 2]. TBH, I
| was expecting the link to be to an article about the history of
| SLBMs.
|
| There's apparently also an Israeli reconnaissance satellite [3]
| and North Korean SLBM that are referred to as Polaris [4]
| (plus, obviously, the star).
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UGM-27_Polaris
|
| [2]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaris_(UK_nuclear_programme)
|
| [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TecSAR-1
|
| [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pukguksong-1
| hbrav wrote:
| Why the hell would someone choose to refer to a second,
| unrelated, SLBM as 'Polaris'? This has the same energy as the
| professor who decided to write an exam question using small
| epsilon and large epsilon for different energies.
| [deleted]
| gameswithgo wrote:
| because normal people don't care
| softwarebeware wrote:
| was_a_dev wrote:
| I really zoned out of the Inspiration4 mission, mainly because
| it's branding was "space for all" when in reality it was (and
| always will be) ITAR restricted, so _for all_ really meant _for
| Americans_.
|
| The Polaris missions here don't seem to promise that, so feels
| more genuine already
| pkaye wrote:
| I don't think ITAR is the issue. There was a Japanese
| billionaire who wanted to do something similar with the SpaceX
| Starship. The passenger doesn't need to know how the ITAR
| restricted technology functions.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-56261574
| MPSimmons wrote:
| The 'all' more meant for people who wouldn't necessarily pass
| the stringent NASA astronaut reqs.
| lashloch wrote:
| "Launch the Polaris; the end doesn't scare us"
| quantumduck wrote:
| Funfact: Anna Menon's husband, Anil Menon, was recently selected
| in the NASA space corps. It would be fun to see if Anna Menon
| ends up flying before Anil Menon.
|
| Would they be the first couple where both partners went to space?
| mzkply wrote:
| It's basically assured that Anna will fly before Anil. Anil's
| got to do 2 years of astronaut candidate training, then become
| an astronaut and wait for a flight slot.
|
| Remember the epic "Navy Seal + Harvard Doctor + Astronaut" guy
| still hasn't flown.
| dtparr wrote:
| Definitely not. For a recent example, both Bob Behnken and Doug
| Hurley of the first manned SpaceX Dragon crew have astronaut
| wives, (Megan McArthur and Karen Nyburg, respectively).
|
| Jan Davis and Mark Lee, a married couple, both went up in 1992
| on the same flight, STS-47. (I think they actually were
| selected prior to being married, and got married in secret
| during training, but I forget the exact timeline)
| silverfrost wrote:
| "Polaris, a constellation of three stars more commonly known as
| the North Star...". Nope. It is a triple star system, something
| completely different.
| bhouston wrote:
| The three body problem in real life?
| fasteddie31003 wrote:
| I believe a triple star system would be a subset of a
| constellation.
| silverfrost wrote:
| A constellation is a pattern of stars in the sky -- all of
| which were determined with the naked eye. Polaris is a triple
| star -- appearing to us as a single point of light.
| e12e wrote:
| No, apparently not:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation#Terminology
| mattkrause wrote:
| The article is frustratingly vague about what constitutes a
| "proper" constellation.
|
| Does it just require being one of the 88 officially-
| enumerated ones, or is there more to it?
| dylan604 wrote:
| There are official constellations, and then there are
| other shapes/patterns known as asterisms. This article
| will be able to explain way better than I could in a
| reply here.
|
| https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/advice/constellations-
| ast...
| everybodyknows wrote:
| Good catch.
|
| > appearing to the naked eye as a single point of light,
| Polaris is a triple star system
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaris
| disadvantage wrote:
| > The Polaris Program is a first-of-its-kind effort to rapidly
| advance human spaceflight capabilities, while continuing to raise
| funds and awareness for important causes here on Earth
|
| But if we're launching loads of people into space, what does the
| carbon footprint of that look like? How can you care for the
| earth if burnt rocket fuel is detrimental to the atmosphere?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > But if we're launching loads of people into space, what does
| the carbon footprint of that look like?
|
| Pretty small. A 747 holds about 200 tons of fuel. A Starship
| holds something like 1,200. One Starship flight is roughly
| equivalent to six long 747 flights (as a rough estimate). Even
| with an absurd thousand Starship flights a day, commercial air
| travel far exceeds it.
| Me1000 wrote:
| A couple caveats: the 1200 figure (which is only for
| Starship) includes liquid oxygen. So the actual methane
| capacity is about 265 tons as roughly 78% of the propellant
| is liquid oxygen by mass. But the super heavy booster carries
| about 800 tons of methane.
| Me1000 wrote:
| If you actually care about the answer you can read up on it (or
| watch the video) here: https://everydayastronaut.com/rocket-
| pollution/
|
| tl;dr: In 2018 rockets accounted for about 0.0000059% of global
| carbon emissions. To put that in perspective, the airline
| industry produced 2.4% in 2018.
| altacc wrote:
| Alternative title: Billionaire buys himself three new space
| missions.
|
| This is obviously great for SpaceX, as Jared Isaacman will be
| helping to finance SpaceX's development without (as I understand
| it) any long term stake in the company.
|
| The "Launching Soon" label for the Starship mission is
| optimistic, seeing as Starship hasn't yet reached anywhere near
| space but Isaacman now gets a front row seat to it's development.
| There are worse ways to spend your money (but arguably also
| better ways).
| knownjorbist wrote:
| The first launch will happen this year using an existing Falcon
| 9 rocket.
| api wrote:
| It's amazing how much negativity this gathers compared to the
| more typical "billionaire buys yet another super yacht" or
| "billionaire throws loads of money at a dubious political think
| tank." It seems like people hate billionaires _more_ when they
| invest money in productive things vs. when they piss it away on
| bullshit.
| cloutchaser wrote:
| A mixture of envy and cognitive dissonance about billionaires
| being evil exploitative rich people
| beaconstudios wrote:
| I think a lot of people view the billionaire space race as
| just another version of them comparing super-yachts. At
| least with the super-yachts, nobody's pretending it's an
| altruistic endeavour.
| api wrote:
| Super yachts are not pushing the boundaries of what is
| fundamentally possible and contributing to the opening of
| a new frontier or building infrastructure that helps us
| more profoundly understand our universe.
|
| That's a distinction people are really missing here.
| Super yachts aren't doing that much to push anything
| forward besides super yachts. Maybe a bit of interesting
| tech for ocean going vessels gets prototyped there but
| nothing anywhere close to the magnitude of what SpaceX
| and Blue Origin are doing.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| How does commercial space flight build infrastructure to
| help us understand the universe?
|
| I don't think space exploration is super important at
| this point in our civilisational development. I get the
| aesthetic appeal from scifi but lack of multiplanetary
| life isn't really a bottleneck for us right now. So it's
| not all that different from flexing with yachts. I like
| Elon's more environment oriented projects (solarcity and
| tesla) but broadly speaking he's a pretty insufferable
| tech bro billionaire.
| agar wrote:
| Calling it a "billionaire space race" always makes me
| laugh.
|
| If orbit is a marathon, two billionaires have made it to
| about the 10 mile mark, while the third one has run 112
| successful marathons in a row.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| Yeah, SpaceX is a long way in the lead, and much less
| like a vanity project compared to the others.
| altacc wrote:
| I think some people add a lot of that negativity themselves
| as they read.
|
| Anyway, this article is not about somebody buying a yacht, so
| it would have been odd to bring that up.
| usrusr wrote:
| The presentation does have a certain "too rich for Copenhagen
| Suborbitals" vibe going on...
| nix23 wrote:
| That's not a good name for a civil rocket/-program tbh.
| iab wrote:
| Also equipped with MIRVs - Multipurpose Instruments for
| Research and Validation
| BeefWellington wrote:
| I'm honestly surprised SpaceX doesn't have a planned moonbase
| named DEATHSTAR already. Probably too gauche from their point
| of view.
|
| It is really nice to see the work of going back into space is
| happening again.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Based on the names of drone ships like "Yes, I Still Love
| You" or whatever they are called, I could see Musk calling
| the moonbase "That's no moon" instead of Deathstar.
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