Byakuya769
Member
Donald and Bannon.
Elon Musk: SpaceX is sending 2 people around the moon in 2018
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Donald and Bannon.
MetalGearZed
Member
okay this is cool as hell
These people know how to do marketing.
MetalGearZed
Member
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Can NASA do this?
NASA landed 18 humans on the moon using 1960's technology between 1969 and 1972, including at least one instance of playing golf on the surface of the moon. NASA "could" have done that (landing on platform) decades ago. NASA's only obstacle is political will and finance, being an arm of the government of the United States. NASA's early plans were far more awesome than anything SpaceX has dreamed up, involving massive space refueling stations and flying to mars riding a trail of shaped nuclear explosions for propulsion.
I'm pretty sure they didn't announce they were going to do it in the following year.
This date is ridiculously unrealistic. That's all I'm saying.
smokeandmirrors
Banned
buh buh muh elon "iron man" musk!1
They planned what they would do in a year a year before they did it. I guess I don't understand why the schedule is ridiculously unrealistic or how you or anyone here would know if it was.
Whether they do it next year or not, they will probably do it before NASA does the same thing with their SLS and Orion.
Letting robots do it is how the dream dies, humans can't control robots to do things the way an actual person could do it on-site. It is significantly slower and limited, its not worth it when you could actually send a person up there instead. The stuff Spirit and Opportunity took a decade to do, a human could have done in a month.
Letting robots do it is how the dream dies, humans can't control robots to do things the way an actual person could do it on-site. It is significantly slower and limited, its not worth it when you could actually send a person up there instead. The stuff Spirit and Opportunity took a decade to do, a human could have done in a month.
E-Cat
Member
Yeah, it's tragic. Gotta up that war spending, right?
As a sidenote, one of the reasons why SpaceX has succeeded w/ limited resources where NASA hasn't has been their pragmatism. The Falcon 9 might not be the most elegant design, but it's a workhorse that gets the job done.
Sounds like there is a pair of really wealthy people who simply wanted the experience of going that far into space. While practical efforts to explore space can mostly be done by robots, there are still those who want to brave the dangers because they want to see it for themselves. I find that desire admirable, since it is that will which pushes us to expand the scope of our ambition and reach for even greater accomplishments.
The capsule rockets of the olden days as well as the ones of today from Boeing and Spacex are way safer than the Space Shuttle was. There were barely any abort modes with the Space Shuttle that were viable or anything close to a high rate of survival. That's a huge disadvantage.
Sometimes I watch videos of Shuttle landings and think "that's cool as fuck" still.
Can NASA do this?
They landed am SUV on Mars with a sky crane
E-Cat
Member
A fresh take to reduce people's admiration for musk to a dank bro meme caricature.
frankie_baby
Member
Herr Schwarz
Banned
Um no dude, hookers and cocaine and just buy a soon to be released app in VR and go to space like that.
I'd imagine a space flight app for VR is deffo on the horizon.
Elfforkusu
Member
Manned space flight jumpstarted the miniaturization of computers, aka how you have a supercomputer in your pocket. Manned space flight has given us vacuum seals that can be used to keep vaccines temperature-controlled in areas that don't have the infrastructure for refrigeration. And on and on. Manned space flight leads to these outcomes because it exists on the cutting edge of aerospace, medical science, basically all types of engineering, etc. And because it exists on the cutting edge of these fields, it serves as a catalyst and inspiration for the scientists and engineers of the future.
There are very few investments that are less of a waste of money, if the goal is to improve the human condition.
andthebeatgoeson
Junior Member
1 out of three ain't bad.okay cool. I was thinking of this .gif
or this .gif
So I guess you could see why I got them confused
okay cool. I was thinking of this .gif
or this .gif
So I guess you could see why I got them confused
What a charmer
Yeah I did
But using parachutes and multiple "stages" (not the correct word, I know) is a bit less... well, it's not less impressive but less cool(!), than propulsive landing like the Dragon. Although that final hover and crane lowering is crazy!
E-Cat
Member
smokeandmirrors
Banned
Yep I only make the dankest of may mays
Boy people must be insecure if that reduces admiration.
half a moon
Banned
Finally something
E-Cat
Member
It's the Musk fan equivalent of calling a 'Bernie bro'.
immortald3ath
Member
Need to get Kyrie Irving on this.
E-Cat
Member
I wonder what zero-G sex feels like? Like some kinky harness shit?
Perfect
BlastProcessing
Member
It was the Mars Curiosity Rover landing. They had to land a 2 ton rover and Mars atmosphere is too thin for a parachute to be feasible so they developed a sky crane. The top part isn't flying back into space as much as it's just getting the fuck out of the way. Once the crane delivers the rover it's job was done so NASA just wanted it to fly away from the rover.
Unknown Soldier
Member
If we convert this from Elon Standard Time (EST®) to Earth Standard Time, it will actually happen in 2028.
But don't underestimate Elon Musk. He will do this, eventually.
When space travel becomes available to private citizens and corporations instead of only world governments, that's when the race to colonize space will officially begin. I can finally get the hell off this rock that has Donald Trump on it.
But don't underestimate Elon Musk. He will do this, eventually.
When space travel becomes available to private citizens and corporations instead of only world governments, that's when the race to colonize space will officially begin. I can finally get the hell off this rock that has Donald Trump on it.
Ether_Snake
å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®
Not really no. If we want to do something specific, like miniaturizing computers, money can be spent on doing exactly that and you'll reach that goal for less than making that part of a bigger plan. This is like the fallacy that military spending leads to technological advancements. It really doesn't, because any investment made for a military need could have been made for a non-military purpose, and without the killing-more-people-related expenses.
If you want to improve technology, you can always spend money on R&D to achieve what you specifically want to achieve. If sending humans on Mars leads to some sort of technological advancement that can benefit us other than in order to spend more people in space or Mars, then the same or more could have been done with as much money or even less.
Trickle-down technological advancement is as dumb as trickle-down economics.
he's too dumb to even properly grasp the magnitude of the scenario and deserves worse anyway tbh
Mr_Antimatter
Member
But that doesn't make sense, as we can list thousands of technologies, techniques, etc that were developed for military/space use that later trickled down to everyday life. Could it have been done purely for civilian use? sure, but it wasn't. Often, there is no real profit in it directly, the R&D is just too much.
Ether_Snake
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Again that is a fallacy. "There is no real profit in it", neither in going in space other than when it is to actually make money. The government can spend trillions in military technology, it could have done so for civilian ends instead, and we would be far ahead of where we are now and all of that would have been specifically for the benefit of society.
Any amounts spent on military R&D would be better spent in the civilian sector. Military spending is only good for military ends, it can never deliver a benefit that wouldn't have been delivered for less in the civilian sector.
No one has ever argued that the technology that came out of the space program or from the military couldn't have been discovered if money were just spend specifically to discover those technologies for the common good. You're completely missing the point when people cite the technological benefits gained from space exploration.
Mr_Antimatter
Member
We could be, or we couldn't be. The thing is, we know from history what was spent and how it trickled down to us.
Denying that is just nonsensical. History is filled with inventions and technologies that were created to suit a military need. It's been one of the biggest drivers of technological advancement there ever was.
Could pure civilian R&D be cheaper? Maybe, but maybe not. Civilian tech is often driven by profit, and some things just aren't directly profitable. However, if a government can frame it as defense spending, often they can get this or that greenlit.
Does it suck that so much is spent trying to ether kill someone or not get killed by someone else? Absolutely. But you can't deny it trickles down.
hey Jeff Bezos whats a heavyweight like you doing on our quaint message-board
Things aren't invented for no reason. The vast majority of inventions that we use today were created to serve a specific purpose on a limited number of projects. This is true whether we're taking about space flight, the military, or commercial R&D. Arguing the money could be better spent in the civilian sector is to ignore how technology develops in the first place.
Elfforkusu
Member
The reason I picked the two examples I did is that we wouldn't have gotten there without an external catalyst.
Keeping things temperature controlled in the 3rd world == "we need better refrigeration! We need distributed power!" Using a near perfect vacuum? Get out of here, it's not worth the R&D cost. Except that someone else funded the R&D.
The "personal computer" never happens without an external factor to start shrinking the thing. Nobody says "let's spend $100 billion on X" without a goal in mind. Manned space flight is the goal for these things.
This applies to military research as well -- but to a lesser extent, because (1) so much military research stays classified or restricted in some capacity, (2) military tech is at the nexus of less fields.
But let me cherry pick an example of something we want to achieve that we could "just spend money on":
How's nuclear fusion working out? I can't prove we'd have it if we'd been spending Apollo-scale money on space flight over the last 40 years, but... well, you can probably guess my thoughts on the matter. And considering the threat of climate change, wouldn't it be such a shame if we had a super cheap, super efficient power generation right now!
Jezbollah
Member
Is it?
The launch vehicle, Falcon Heavy, is already in production with a demo flight in a few months time. The capsule, Crew Dragon, has been in development for use with the NASA Commercial Crew contract and is due to fly earlier than Falcon Heavy.
Both components are well down their respective development paths - and it's a good argument to say that SpaceX has advanced space achievement more in their 10 years than NASA has done since Apollo.
The difference between military spending and space spending is that going to space will have significant net benefits to humanity in of itself. Space travel might very well be the greatest investment humanity can put money towards. If we can reach space reliably and affordably, we can build habitats for people to live in, tap into vast resources far beyond what we can find on Earth, and solve many of the problems here on Earth. It is a distant goal with a lot of obstacles, but it is perfectly attainable. Spending money on space technologies will one day bring massive returns. I don't think Mars is our logical next step, but being able to build a base on the Moon would change absolutely everything. That directly leads to building cities in space that can export food and energy back to the Earth.
You're not wrong, but in the early days, it was much harder to develop new technologies than it is today. Still, you're thinking about this in an incorrect way. Private companies are beholden to shareholders. Taking high risks with innovations is a good way to make your company go under. Whereas with governmental projects, high risk innovations are required to stay competitive in whatever field. Moreover, in order to innovate you require a problem to solve, and often the military/NASA have very big problems that require unique solutions that often end up creating new technologies that trickle down to the rest of society.
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