[HN Gopher] SpaceX launches 4 people for private mission to the ...
___________________________________________________________________
SpaceX launches 4 people for private mission to the International
Space Station
Author : andsoitis
Score : 133 points
Date : 2024-01-19 14:33 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| andsoitis wrote:
| And launch details and video / interviews from SpaceX directly:
| https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=ax-3
| bombcar wrote:
| I just realized it but someone has the job description "Color
| commentator for regular space launches".
| chrisco255 wrote:
| The perfect job doesn't exi-
| ramraj07 wrote:
| It's not clear what exactly the profile of these people is. The
| article says they're paying their way but also that they'll be
| doing experiments?
| pocketarc wrote:
| They're all military people from different countries;
| andsoitis's link has links to all their profiles. So it might
| be a commercial flight, but it's not random people.
| justrealist wrote:
| Italy, Sweden and Turkey are paying their way. They are all
| military pilots. They are just paying for seats with Axiom
| directly rather than bartering for seats with NASA.
| wrsh07 wrote:
| Tbh this seems good for all of those countries (and good for
| Axiom!)
|
| Feels pretty win/win. I have some trepidation about letting
| capitalism decide our priorities in space, but so far it is
| helping us make really exciting progress
| kiba wrote:
| Businesses like SpaceX and Blue Origin are really
| prestige/passion projects, not normal capitalist
| enterprises which are all just about making a buck.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > Businesses like SpaceX and Blue Origin are really
| prestige/passion projects, not normal capitalist
| enterprises which are all just about making a buck.
|
| Maybe that's true of Blue Origin, but you're going to
| need a lot more evidence to back up that claim in regards
| to SpaceX.
|
| The best estimate is that they make a >50% gross margin
| on Falcon 9 launches (at least for external customers).
| And while they spend a lot on Starlink launches, they're
| also making quite a lot of Starlink revenue at this
| point.
|
| It's certainly true that they're dumping a lot of R&D
| money into Starship. But that strategy is how they earned
| their current medium/heavy lift launch market dominance,
| so I can't really fault them for that. And if Starship
| does work out, it could set them up for a functional
| monopoly on launch for decades. Not to mention
| dramatically decreasing their internal Starlink costs.
| timschmidt wrote:
| With SpaceX, colonizing Mars is the passion / prestige
| project. Elon and his people are extraordinarily good at
| finding ways to make all the dependent sub-projects
| profitable while working toward the larger goal. Which is
| as impressive as the engineering.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Mars colonization is not their business. Launching
| commercial payloads is. Everything else is just
| marketing.
| soperj wrote:
| > With SpaceX, colonizing Mars is the passion / prestige
| project.
|
| That's more just a out there goal to motivate people who
| are motivated by that. Still have had zero launches to
| Mars.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Being a passion project doesn't preclude making a profit.
| Especially if you're not being stupidly short sighted.
|
| Plus, other companies are having a hard enough time
| competing already (even small launch is facing tough
| competition from the F9 rideshares), if SpaceX dropped
| their prices too low, it'd quickly run most of the launch
| market out of business, which is not in the interests of
| a company that wants to improve accessibility to space.
|
| This is also why even if Starship's cost targets pan out,
| they'll likely just charge slightly lower than competing
| options for the specific payload.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > Being a passion project doesn't preclude making a
| profit. Especially if you're not being stupidly short
| sighted.
|
| OK. But the comment I responded to call it a
| passion/prestige project and contracted it with a normal
| profit driven business.
|
| > This is also why even if Starship's cost targets pan
| out, they'll likely just charge slightly lower than
| competing options for the specific payload.
|
| Yeah. SpaceX hasn't said anything, but I tend to believe
| that they'll move to a capabilities based pricing model
| where customers pay by the KG and/or m^3. That way they
| can compete for small payloads while getting paid
| appropriately for large ones.
| kiba wrote:
| _OK. But the comment I responded to call it a passion
| /prestige project and contracted it with a normal profit
| driven business._
|
| If you want to just make money, there are far easier and
| less risky industries you can invest your money in than
| launch services and rockets. You can even just invest
| your wealth in an index fund and earn a return that is
| basically risk-free.
| wilg wrote:
| People should really look more at hacking capitalism to
| do big exciting things, like SpaceX, IMO.
| wrsh07 wrote:
| I completely agree! I think it's generally related to the
| ai alignment problem, fwiw
|
| The trick is that we need to ban fraud aggressively and
| then reduce the profits from endeavors we want to
| discourage (not sure if there are good general
| mechanisms. I mean we use taxes for this sometimes.
| Imagine if one wanted to reduce the collection of user
| data if instead of gdpr you created a data tax!)
|
| I'm also very interested to hear what projects you think
| might be good candidates to do this with!
| WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
| > Feels pretty win/win.
|
| Please develop this further, what Italy has to win? other
| than the scientific breakthrough that is to spend tax payer
| money to "buy a seat"
|
| > is helping us make really exciting progress
|
| us? you meant the USA?
|
| progress? like?
|
| I don't recall Italy working on any similar projects, how
| will these seats help italians get a return of investment?
|
| Sounds like an attempt at masking subsidies from the EU, at
| the expense of ESA
|
| I wonder who's in the lobby
|
| "SpaceX accuses Arianespace of unfair competition" -
| https://www.lesechos.fr/industrie-services/air-
| defense/exclu...
|
| "Elon Musk's company complains about subsidies from France
| and Europe, and calls on Washington to act."
|
| > I have some trepidation about letting capitalism decide
| our priorities in space, but so far it is helping us make
| really exciting progress
|
| Oh, the irony!
|
| In the meantime:
|
| - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong_space_station
|
| - https://consumer.huawei.com/za/community/details/Huawei-
| Mate...
|
| - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Lunar_Exploration_P
| rog...
|
| - https://www.space.com/china-landspace-ready-for-reusable-
| roc...
| ABS wrote:
| 1) go to https://www.axiomspace.com/missions/ax3/research
|
| 2) click on the Italian flag
|
| 3) read about all the experiments, who funds them, why
| they will be run/what they hope to learn
|
| 4) go to 2 and change flag for the other countries
|
| you will find both public and private
| experiments/initiatives in there
| WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
| Exactly, this further prove my point, masked subsidy from
| the EU ;)
| ABS wrote:
| if that's your definition of subsidy then... everything
| everywhere is a subsidy ;)
| WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
| I should have been more precise, masked subsidy for a
| competing company from a foreign country ;)
| nordsieck wrote:
| > They are just paying for seats with Axiom directly rather
| than bartering for seats with NASA.
|
| To be fair to those countries, it's typically ESA that
| barters with NASA, not the individual member countries. And
| it seems like astronauts are selected in rough proportion to
| national contribution (generally in line with the National
| Return policy).
|
| Paying for a private seat may be a more efficient way for
| smaller countries to get people into space.
| dmurray wrote:
| Is Turkey even an ESA member? I don't think it's clear
| they'd be welcomed. This seems like a sensible way for them
| to dip their toes into having a space program.
| mrtksn wrote:
| The Turkish one is essentially for propaganda, being "the
| first Turk in space" right before the elections(although
| he is supposed to run some experiments for the Turkish
| Universities). It's still nice though, maybe will inspire
| some kids to pursue careers in science but there's an
| ongoing debate in Turkey if he is just a space
| tourist(it's complicated).
|
| A fun thing is, He is from the secular demographic and
| his firsts words were to commemorate Ataturk and the
| islamists and seculars instantly switched place; Now the
| pro-government people say He is a space tourist and the
| secular opposition says he is a hero :)
| atahanacar wrote:
| >He is from the secular demographic
|
| This is an understatement. He was purged from the
| military and jailed by Islamists/Gulenists/Erdogan using
| fabricated evidence and cultist judges, for "attempting a
| secularist coup".
|
| I don't think it is "essentially" for propaganda. This
| would happen regardless, propaganda is just a side-
| benefit. Saying that he's "just a space tourist" would be
| like calling scientists that go to Antarctica for
| experiments "polar tourists". It is definitely overblown
| by the government media though.
| mezeek wrote:
| the difference is that NASA only has seats for 6-month ISS
| missions, not a couple weeks like Axiom missions. Totally
| different.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| The setup with the Axiom flights is that it's private access to
| a space station and associated capabilities before Axiom's own
| modules are ready (which are intended to start off as part of
| the ISS, eventually detaching and leaving their own private
| space station).
|
| Idea being that this way Axiom has some revenue and is able to
| gain some operational experience.
|
| Since the ticket is expensive and at least one seat is taken up
| by someone with spaceflight experience and AFAIK has high
| demand relative to the number of flights available, the people
| going up are doing at least something productive.
| diggan wrote:
| I'm not sure about the others, but the Swedish guy was
| "selected" from lots of different people, so just saying that
| "they're paying their way" seems slightly reductive:
|
| > He was selected in November 2022 from over 22,500 applicants
| to join a new European astronaut group of 17 lucky recipients.
|
| https://www.rymdstyrelsen.se/upptack-rymden/bloggen/2024/01/...
|
| That page has lots of useful information about the project
| itself (although in Swedish, may DeepL et al help you), like:
|
| > One of the two Swedish projects involves stem cell research
| and is led by Elena Kozlova, Professor of Regenerative
| Neurobiology at Uppsala University. Stem cells have previously
| been sent into space by sounding rockets and exposed to a few
| minutes of microgravity, showing that stem cells have a greater
| capacity to divide and develop into mature cells than they do
| under normal conditions on Earth. Now Marcus Wandt is taking
| stem cells into space for two weeks.
|
| > In the project, Orbital Architecture, researchers at KTH
| Royal Institute of Technology want to investigate how people's
| physical and mental health is affected by staying in confined
| spaces for long periods of time. The researchers will analyze
| Marcus Wandt's stress, cognitive performance, heart activity
| and movements and compare data collected from different parts
| of the space station to understand how the design of space
| environments affects the astronauts' thinking and stress
| levels.
| DylanSp wrote:
| To elaborate, the Swedish astronaut, Marcus Wandt, is part of
| ESA's "reserve astronaut" pool; the ESA press release [1]
| mentions that this "is composed of astronaut candidates who
| were successful throughout the entire selection process but
| cannot be recruited at this point in time."
|
| [1] https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic
| _Ex...
| TMWNN wrote:
| ESA announced Wandt's selection in November 2022. Now he's
| in orbit, less than 15 months later! This is the fastest
| time between selection and orbit in history that I know of.
| No doubt there are full-time ESA astronauts announced with
| Wandt who are now dumbfounded that a backup is flying
| before them, not to mention those in earlier batches.
|
| This sort of thing has happened in the US, too. When NASA
| began flying payload specialists
| <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payload_specialist> on the
| shuttle, that program included people who had been turned
| down by the NASA astronaut program, like Charles Walker and
| Byron Lichtenberg. They got to fly _before_ many who had
| been selected in the same intakes they themselves had been
| rejected from! Walker flew three times (!) in fifteen
| months, and Lichtenberg flew twice. (Walker was selected
| for his first shuttle flight in May 1983 and the first
| attempt to launch was in June 1984, so he would have been
| the record holder had that happened; he went up in August.)
| Tepix wrote:
| He gets to stay for 2 weeks, they get to stay for 6
| months
| jacquesm wrote:
| Looking forward to a time when there will be an astronaut
| shortage.
| DylanSp wrote:
| Ars Technica's article [1] has more background. The commander
| is a former NASA astronaut with a lot of experience who now
| works for Axiom; the three passengers are military officers
| whose governments have contracted with Axiom.
|
| [1] https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/all-european-crew-
| take...
| hef19898 wrote:
| Axiom, like the space ship in Wall-e? Heck, why not I
| guess...
|
| Considering the crew, and who actually pays for the launch, I
| guess _commercial_ or sub-contracted are bettwr terms to
| discribe the mission. Private space mission aoinda way to
| much like rich dudes space tourism. Military astronauts and a
| selected scientist using a non-government launch and space
| craft, commanded by a proper, and experienced, mission
| commander is a different sport all together.
| DylanSp wrote:
| To be fair to reporters, Axiom does both; their first
| mission had three space tourists as passengers, their
| second mission had one space tourist and two passengers
| from the Saudi government (a military pilot and a
| biomedical researcher).
| hef19898 wrote:
| As far as headlines go, there are worse...
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Even if it was private space tourism, what's the problem?
| They'd be spending their massive wealth funding further
| development of space technology. This isn't a virgin
| galactic style technological dead end death trap.
|
| As prices come down for access to space, there is obviously
| going to be a point between only being affordable by
| governments and being affordable by everyone, where only
| governments and particularly rich people can afford it.
| diggan wrote:
| > Even if it was private space tourism, what's the
| problem?
|
| I don't think everyone is as excited to have capitalism
| take over our priorities in space, after seeing what it
| has done to Terra.
| Alupis wrote:
| 99.999% of all man-made objects in space (and all of
| their benefits you enjoy every day) are there because of
| capitalism...
| diggan wrote:
| I'd say despite capitalism, but lets just agree to
| disagree :)
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Then you don't know anything about the history of space
| exploration, or are so deluded by your ideology that you
| are intentionally blind to it.
| diggan wrote:
| Or, I just happen to have a different opinion from you,
| and a different conclusion? It's not impossible you know
| Alupis wrote:
| Well, your opinion is not grounded in reality. Nearly
| every item in space that is man-made was put there for
| commercial purposes. The space race may have started out
| with government/exploration, but it was vastly propelled
| by commercial interests seeking to deliver services
| around the planet.
| soperj wrote:
| That sounds made up. Sputnik wasn't because of
| capitalism, and capitalism didn't put a man on the moon.
| edgyquant wrote:
| Sputnik was one satellite decades ago. Most things in
| space are commercial satellites at this point so the OP
| is correct
| soperj wrote:
| 99.999%. Doubt it.
|
| edit:
|
| https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2021/05/The_inc
| rea...
|
| Rounding up to 30000 objects in orbit (not even in
| space), that would mean 0.3 objects weren't made by
| capitalism. 1 object put up by government invalidates OP.
| Alupis wrote:
| Starlink has a little over 5,000 satellites in orbit
| currently, with expansion planned up to 42,000 in the
| future.
|
| At the end of 2022, there was only 6,718 active
| satellites[1] in space - total.
|
| The amount of government objects (from any country, of
| any kind, station, spy satellite, probe, rover, etc) is
| dwarfed by commercial interests. This just illustrates
| the sheer volume of commercial objects in space...
|
| In fact, here's a list of all publicly acknowledged
| satellites launched by the USAF since 1984[2]. It shows
| 331 in total, counting inactive satellites.
|
| [1] https://blog.ucsusa.org/syoung/how-many-satellites-
| are-in-sp...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_USA_satellites
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| It is impossible to know however, if large economies
| under different systems than capitalism would not have
| made for instance satellite phones a priority 40 years
| ago rather than landlines and cell towers. Capitalism
| didn't because it was more expensive but a central
| planner might well have because they thought it was
| cooler.
|
| So it's kind of unreasonable to be adamant that only
| because of capitalism we have stuff in space.
| Alupis wrote:
| Which centrally planned economy can/could afford to
| operate a constellation for phones?
|
| The initial Iridium constellation is estimated at around
| $5 Billion in 1998 money (~$9 Billion today), and it
| nearly killed the company in the process. That was just
| initial constellation expenses - monthly subscriptions
| are still cost prohibitive for majority of the
| population/general use, and ongoing maintenance is very
| expensive.
|
| The point is - it's not only cheaper to do land-based
| communications, but it's more reliable.
|
| There doesn't seem to be any reality where a centrally
| planned economy would take this sort of project on just
| for funsies...
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| The Soviet Union operated all sorts of uneconomical
| undertakings because they felt they needed to.
|
| All that is needed is motivated labour that gets fed and
| housed. There is no magical law that you have to pay
| "market rates" so people can buy themselves gadgets.
|
| Now to be clear I am not advocating for the Soviet Union
| or central planning, far from it. I am only saying that
| there is no inherent reason why you'd need capitalism to
| fill space up with stuff.
|
| It is obviously a very powerful system but it is not the
| only possible system or necessarily the best. Again I
| very much like regulated and properly taxed market
| capitalist economies and want to keep living in one.
| Alupis wrote:
| The collapse of the Soviet Union was complex, but
| uneconomical undertakings did play a significant role...
| including the "Space Race".
|
| Which cements my point... commercialism is the only way
| these sorts of activities can exist.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| We should just agree to disagree.
|
| Was ancient Egypt capitalist and the pyramids a
| commercial enterprise?
|
| Again I am not advocating for anything except that we
| don't turn economic systems into religious beliefs.
| Alupis wrote:
| > we don't turn economic systems into religious beliefs.
|
| Sure, I agree entirely with this statement.
|
| > Was ancient Egypt capitalist and the pyramids a
| commercial enterprise?
|
| Slave Labor is difficult to beat, eh? This is a strange
| way to make a point about government spending vs.
| commercialism.
|
| The overall point was the incentive for someone to make a
| profit is what motivates many if not all of the risky
| endeavors. If governments were solely in charge of
| launching rockets, then there would be no push by SpaceX
| to develop cheaper alternatives (and therefore win
| contracts, therefore make money).
|
| The government being solely in charge of any particular
| industry has rarely if ever resulted in innovations and
| ultimately a better service/product. The incentives are
| just not aligned under those circumstances.
| soperj wrote:
| Doesn't mean that OP was correct which was what I was
| responding to.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| 1. Someone being hyperbolic when smashing the 9 key
| doesn't "invalidate" their argument. In this context, 99%
| can serve the same purpose.
|
| 2. If we do want to be pedantic, they said "in space" and
| sputnik is not in space anymore.
| soperj wrote:
| Sure, but the flag on the moon is, along with rovers,
| along with the moon space cart, along with voyager 1 & 2
| and many other things. 10 years ago, nearly all of it was
| put up by government funded vehicles. Even SpaceX
| wouldn't be where it is today without Government funding
| (might not even exist).
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I think they were counting NASA as "because of
| capitalism". If you disagree with that, then that's a
| much better line of argument than going after the exact
| percentage.
| dotancohen wrote:
| I don't know if you are referring to communications
| satellites, but only with the advent of Starlink have
| comms birds outnumbered reconnaissance birds.
| jpadkins wrote:
| Why? Populations that adopted capitalism are
| significantly better off than they were before usage. And
| it's the best economic system we have invented.
|
| Totalitarian regimes in space haven't gotten us very far,
| and frankly sound very depressing for the future of
| humanity.
| soperj wrote:
| > And it's the best economic system we have invented.
|
| That would be the market economy, not capitalism. Since
| we have state capitalism as well as other varieties that
| aren't free markets.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| If we're being particular about definitions, then I
| wouldn't say that space tourism or any kind of tourism
| market is promoting capitalism.
|
| I think the criticism upthread was aimed more generally
| at large undertakings for the sake of profit with barely
| anyone getting goods/services out of the deal, which does
| fit space tourism.
| mezeek wrote:
| NASA forced Axiom to have the mission commander be an ex-NASA
| Astronaut for safety purposes. The first mission had 4 guys
| running around the ISS not knowing what's up.
| DylanSp wrote:
| Wasn't the same commander (Michael Lopez-Alegria) that's on
| this flight also on Axiom-1?
| adolph wrote:
| A previous Ars article gives some additional perspective on
| the crew's relationship with ESA. Axiom is also partnered
| with Thales for a commercial space station, so other links
| already exist.
|
| _By filling this astronaut reserve pool, ESA seems to have
| created a market for Axiom Space, a move that might raise
| questions given the agency's purpose is to promote the
| European space sector. In fact, the ESA's founding Convention
| enshrines the principle of geo-return, which grants member
| states at least an 80 percent return on their contributions
| into ESA's budget in the form of research and development
| contracts. Although the cost of the Axiom missions is paid
| through ESA, most of this money goes to the Texas-
| headquartered Axiom Space and its launch provider, SpaceX._
|
| https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/axiom-and-spacex-
| are-d...
| charles_f wrote:
| They're pretty easy to look for: -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Wandt - pilot, masters of
| electronics, and ESA reserve astronaut. -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alper_Gezeravc%C4%B1 - pilot,
| with some electronics studies. -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Villadei - pilot, masters
| in aerospace and astronautic engineering. -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_L%C3%B3pez-Alegr%C3%AD...
| - pilot, masters in aeronautical engineers. Flew on space
| shuttle 3 times, second longest EVA, fifth longest duration in
| space.
|
| The mission is private, but it's sponsored by industry (notably
| Saab from what I've seen). The astronauts seem to be reasonably
| professional, and the mission goal oriented. It doesn't seem to
| be one of these stunts where rich people go to space and
| pretend to hold a test tube to give a dimension above "I had
| too much money so I burnt the GDP of a small country and its
| carbon emissions to spend a vacation in space".
| bradly wrote:
| > The article says they're paying their way but also that
| they'll be doing experiments?
|
| When I worked at Apple we "hired" the ISS. Astronauts were
| trained and scheduled and would work for us. The work was not
| anything science related. I'm not sure how common this is,
| though.
| ukuuru wrote:
| Turkish guy is part of Turkish Space Program efforts run by
| Turkish Space Agency. He is a military pilot selected among
| many applicants to be first astronaut from Turkey. Also they
| are running to be the sixth country to land on moon with the
| help of SpaceX.
| trollied wrote:
| I missed this because they've moved the launches to . I don't
| think to look on there - the rest of the content I consume is
| either on YouTube or Twitch. A "me" problem, I know.
| sbuttgereit wrote:
| It was on several YouTube channels: Axiom, ESA, I think NASA
| even. Granted, not the SpaceX channel, but it was just the
| SpaceX feed on all these channels.
|
| To also be fair, I don't watch nearly so many launches as I use
| to for the same reason as you. I've been off Twitter/X for many
| years and SpaceX streams aren't enough to change that.
| Whatarethese wrote:
| It was live on the Nasa YouTube channel. 200k viewers at one
| point.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Very curious to see once spacex has starship working if it will
| attempt to build a permanent platform in space.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It's definitely on the roadmap somewhere.
|
| SpaceX's problem as a private company is that they've been _so_
| successful that they 're a victim of their own success; they've
| captured a market that isn't necessarily a growth sector by
| itself, they need people to have a reason to launch payloads.
| It's one of the reasons they're in Starlink; making their own
| payloads justifies continued development and operation of their
| rocketry sector.
|
| So a space hotel would be a huge justification of their
| continued existence as a private concern.
| sneak wrote:
| I think Starlink is justified because it results in tons of
| recurring revenue (thus funding R&D), not because they need
| payloads for their rockets.
| DylanSp wrote:
| I could definitely imagine SpaceX launching another company's
| station, like what Axiom has in mind. I don't know if SpaceX
| would want to build a crewed orbital station themselves and
| operate it; I don't think they want to get into that business,
| but they might eventually want a research platform for
| developing Mars missions, testing out life support systems and
| the like.
| tomatotomato37 wrote:
| I wonder how that's going to fare with the clamshell
| configuration of the starship in its reusable configuration. If
| there is one advantage to traditional rockets, its that you can
| get away with really bulbous disposable fairing configurations
| needed to fit something large and cumbersome like a station
| component.
| thegrim33 wrote:
| Well I mean it still has a bigger payload bay than the space
| shuttle, at 56x26 feet vs 60x15 feet for the shuttle. It can
| lift roughly 3.5x the volume and 4x the mass as the shuttle
| into orbit.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| what's really going to be interesting is if they can get a
| boring machine into there and out again for mars.
| antoniuschan99 wrote:
| This is a good video on what Axiom Space is doing
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf7vPy_H94Q
| GMoromisato wrote:
| There are literally only three organizations on earth capable of
| putting humans in orbit: 1. SpaceX 2.
| China 3. Russia
|
| I say "SpaceX" instead of America or NASA because the Axiom
| missions show that SpaceX can launch people independent of NASA.
|
| India may develop their own capability to put humans in orbit
| before Europe does, which is amazing to me. [Though admittedly
| that's only because Europe has different priorities--not
| necessarily a lack of ability.]
| hammock wrote:
| NASA cannot independent of SpaceX?
| mezeek wrote:
| They can go to Russia like they did for 10 years after the
| Shuttle retired.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| The sanctions make this harder surely.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| Probably not as much as you'd expect. Launches are out of
| Kazakhstan. Russia still sends cosmonauts to fly on
| dragon. This remains probably the most robust point of
| diplomatic contact between the two countries, especially
| since rogozin allegedly lost his penis (not a joke -- the
| anti USA rhetoric of roscosmos has decreased since he
| departed? from his post). I wouldn't be surprised if musk
| is instructed to at least publically not be too pro-
| ukraine to preserve this line of communication (I also
| wouldn't be surprised if musk is just being dumb).
|
| Edit: ok this is slightly incorrect, rogozin was
| dismissed from roscosmos and _then_ he got injured on the
| front, not the other order around
| DennisP wrote:
| NASA hasn't been able since the Shuttle got retired in 2011.
| They've been relying first on Russian rockets and then on
| SpaceX ever since. There are several alternatives in
| development but nothing human-rated yet.
| rst wrote:
| Boeing's Starliner is now expected to have a crewed flight
| test in April (after two shaky uncrewed test flights, the
| first nearly disastrous). Of course, by the standards being
| applied to SpaceX here, that could be described as "relying
| on Boeing"...
| jandrese wrote:
| I definitely wouldn't volunteer to be on that first
| crewed flight of Starliner. Boeing has had some
| questionable engineering decisions in the last decade and
| it has shaken my confidence in the ability of their
| engineers to press back against management when there is
| an inconvenient truth.
| robbiep wrote:
| Boeing space flight is on delicious cost plus contracts
| as opposed to trying to shave it down to the bone in 737
| max
| firesteelrain wrote:
| In all fairness, NASA provides oversight for the Commercial
| Crew Program. This is better than the previous arrangements
| because there is incentive for companies to perform the
| contracted work on behalf of NASA rather than NASA taking
| on all the risk.
|
| Edit: Guess down voters don't like this idea
| FriedPickles wrote:
| No, but NASA's on the cusp of regaining the ability with SLS
| rocket/Orion capsule/Artemis program. First crewed launch
| targeted for Sept 2025.
| autoexecbat wrote:
| NASA can do so without SpaceX, they have 2 human-rated
| vehicles that have flown.
|
| There is the SLS/Orion and Atlas/Starliner - they just havent
| actually put people in them yet
| idlewords wrote:
| They can, on SLS and Orion.
| resolutebat wrote:
| They could and perhaps soon will, but at time of writing,
| they haven't.
| eddywebs wrote:
| Indian human space flight mission program is already underway
| with launch date sometime in 2025 -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Human_Spaceflight_Progr...
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Well, idk about literally, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic both
| did it in 2021 right? Could they not do it again? NASA has
| plans to do it next year.
|
| In any case, were there ever more than now? I'm curious if we
| were regressing, or just not progressing for a couple decades.
| orls wrote:
| Parent post said putting people into _orbit_. Those companies
| do short suborbital flights.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| You're right I missed that.
| autoexecbat wrote:
| BO and VG didn't go orbital, which is the real test of
| capability.
|
| Being able to shoot straight up and fall back down isn't
| anywhere near as useful or hard as orbit.
| jandrese wrote:
| This is why everybody who talks about space should spend a
| few hours with Kerbal Space Program just to get a sense of
| the difference in scale between a suborbital hop and
| actually putting something into orbit.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > Being able to shoot straight up and fall back down isn't
| anywhere near as useful or hard as orbit.
|
| Being able to reach space at all is the hard part: so many
| pieces have to be developed and work well together.
| Achieving orbit is more evolutionary than from going from 0
| to 1. Orbit seems like a such an arbitrary line, amd I
| suspect once BO achieves it, the bar is going to be
| arbitrarily raised to "Heavy-lift rockets are the hard
| part, and only 2 organizations on Earth can achieve it"
| tekla wrote:
| > Being able to reach space at all is the hard part No
| its not. Teenagers can get to space with model rockets
| and simple fuels. You can reach space simply by throwing
| something really really hard, but it will come right back
| down.
|
| https://www.wired.com/story/a-rocket-built-by-students-
| reach...
|
| > Orbit seems like a such an arbitrary line
|
| It's not. If your super expensive rocket can't reach
| orbit, why would anyone bother? Can't deploy sats, can't
| go to the ISS, nothing.
| mden wrote:
| Isn't having a private entity be able to do what previously
| required a nation a good sign for that nation? The idea that
| the USA cannot re-obtain that capability again seems silly to
| me and there are a lot of pros for having private companies
| pushing the state of art forward.
| itake wrote:
| it puts the concentration of power into fewer individuals
| hands, which makes me nervous.
|
| The gov is slow b/c it requires sign off from hundreds of
| people. (For example, congress approving NASA's budget).
|
| As a private entity, maybe 20 or 50 people are required to
| approve or reject missions. This lets them move faster, but
| if a certain CEO doesn't want to provide services for a war,
| they can mess with the contract.
| sangnoir wrote:
| NASA deliberately funded private space flight capability. Your
| slight seems misdirected.
| slowhadoken wrote:
| But people still act like Musk is a crank. The cognitive
| dissonance is real.
| deeviant wrote:
| > The cognitive dissonance is real.
|
| Indeed.
| cheeze wrote:
| I think both can be true. Musk is a buffoon in the media and
| things like X haven't really panned out. But SpaceX is on their
| stuff well.
|
| Both are true, IMO.
| sandofsky wrote:
| These responses always confuse me. Musk doesn't design or build
| the rockets. It's fascinating to see SpaceX succeed while
| Twitter fails, because the former has management in place to
| keep things on the rails, while the latter has Musk unchecked.
|
| He does appear to be good at raising money, through a mixture
| of government subsidies and making things up to pump
| valuations. It's just that instead of Tesla's "self driving
| cars are coming next year" it's about missions to Mars. (You
| could argue that this is similar Steve Jobs' reality distortion
| field, except... Apple actually delivered.)
|
| But even if Musk had a hand in things, professional success
| does validate unwell behavior. Howard Hughes was a successful
| aircraft engineer despite, but clearly suffered from severe
| mental illness. The difference is that Hughs lived out his
| decline in private, while Musk is live-tweeting his unraveling.
| archagon wrote:
| We all have eyes and ears. Whatever the merits of SpaceX might
| be, his behavior is not subtle.
| jsight wrote:
| It is amazing how effective the mentality of "move fast and break
| things" can be.
| miohtama wrote:
| Move fast and blow up some rockets
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