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from the to-infinity-and-beyond,maybe dept.
SpaceX announces partnership to send four tourists into deep orbit:
SpaceX announced a new partnership Tuesday to send four tourists deeper into orbit than any private citizen before them, in a mission that could take place by 2022 and easily cost more than $100 million.
The company signed the deal with Space Adventures, which is based in Washington and served as an intermediary to send eight space tourists to the International Space Station (ISS) via Russian Soyuz rockets.
The first of these was Dennis Tito, who paid $20 million for an eight hour stay on the ISS back in 2001. The last to go was Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte, in 2009.
The new tourists would be carried on SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule, which was developed to transport NASA astronauts and is due to make its first crewed flight in the coming months.
"Our goal is to try to get to about two to three times the height of the space station," Space Adventure's president Tom Shelley told AFP.
The ISS orbits at 400 kilometers (250 miles) above Earth's surface, but the exact altitude of the Space Adventures mission would be determined by SpaceX, added Shelley.
At its earliest, it could take place by late 2021, though "probably more likely is sometime in 2022," he said.
The capsule was designed to take astronauts from the surface to the ISS. Just nine square meters in volume[sic], there are no private areas to sleep wash or use the bathroom.
Mission duration will depend on what the customers want, said Shelley.
Space Adventures has posted its official announcement on its website.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday February 19 2020, @03:24PM (6 children)
>Proven technology
Umm, you're talking about the capsule that just exploded a couple tests ago...
Maybe it's just me, but "proven technology" in a space capsule suggests something that's flown at least a few dozen times *without* exploding.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday February 19 2020, @03:31PM (5 children)
The Falcon 9 booster is proven, and Crew Dragon made it to ISS, is similar to Cargo Dragon, and only exploded in a test after it had returned to Earth and got dunked in seawater.
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(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday February 19 2020, @04:12PM (4 children)
The booster is fairly well proven, certainly.
The module itself though - even including the Cargo Dragon there've still been less than two dozen flights total, two of which experienced anomalies, and one which failed - due to the carrier rocket exploding rather than a problem with the module, but while the the module could likely have survived, the software hadn't been written to consider that situation and failed to deploy parachutes.
It's certainly well on its way to being proven technology, but I would say it hasn't quite got there yet.
Of course it does beat the socks off the as-yet completely untested Starship.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Freeman on Wednesday February 19 2020, @04:48PM (3 children)
The Space Shuttle is the only American space vehicle that has been used more. Personally, I'd call it proven, with Starship being the possible to explode, unproven vehicle.
Space Shuttle Numbers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle [wikipedia.org]
Apollo Command and Control Module Numbers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_command_and_service_module [wikipedia.org]
Mercury Project:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Mercury#Spacecraft [wikipedia.org]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday February 19 2020, @05:00PM (2 children)
Put those numbers in perspective - the Shuttle had a 2/135 = 1.5% failure rate
The Dragon capsule in comparison has had a 1/21 = 4.8% failure rate
The Dragon will need to more than triple the number of missions flown without any additional failures in order to reach the reliability track record of the space shuttle.
Mercury and Apollo certainly fared far worse - but they were cutting edge military projects, not civilian transportation. The standards are far different.
Personally, I find a 5% chance of death to be a little high for a joy ride.
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Wednesday February 19 2020, @10:46PM (1 child)
That may be a good rough number for planning purposes, but if you were putting money on it*, you should expect it to be lower, because the failure has since been mitigated. That is, the potential causes of failure in the past were more numerous than current potential causes.
* That is to say, it's not your death that is on the line.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday February 20 2020, @02:08AM
Well, they *attempted* mitigation anyway.
Only time will tell if the mitigation was successful, and if any new problems were introduced in the process.