Ain't getting me on one of those darn things.

I think what he has in mind is not something that would decelerate and enter lunar orbit. It's probably just putting a capsule into an highly eccentricity earth orbit that loops around but quite far from the moon.

However, even this still seem to me to strain the throw weight of his rocket. I am guessing you would need to be able to put at least 40-50 tons into low earth orbit to have a capsule able to keep 2 persons alive for 7-8 days and enough onboard fuel to slow and deorbit the capsule when it comes screaming back from its highly elliptical orbit, and a transfer stage that can push such an capsule into the elliptical orbit in the first place.

He can take a copy of the established science from the previous moon missions and save a ton of research time and money. The Saturn V booster and every thing that went with it is public knowledge, and what might not be public knowledge can be deduced via standard math, engineering and physics. We've come a long way in the last 50 years. He's got people from a lot of aerospace companies in the area with the experience necessary. If I hadn't had "golden handcuffs" (too close to retirement to give up the last few years of increasing retirement benefits) at my job when he started up, I'd have jumped ship and gone to work there. Many of my associates did, and they love his company. It'll be interesting to watch, in any event.

(March 4, 2017 at 12:30 am)Fireball Wrote: He can take a copy of the established science from the previous moon missions and save a ton of research time and money. The Saturn V booster and every thing that went with it is public knowledge, and what might not be public knowledge can be deduced via standard math, engineering  and physics. We've come a long way in the last 50 years. He's got people from a lot of aerospace companies in the area with the experience necessary. If I hadn't had "golden handcuffs" (too close to retirement to give up the last few years of increasing retirement benefits) at my job when he started up, I'd have jumped ship and gone to work there. Many of my associates did, and they love his company. It'll be interesting to watch, in any event.

Yeah, Saturn 5 also had a 100+ ton lifting capacity to low earth orbit. I want to know the minimum mass that must be lifted into LEO to shoot 2 men around the moon. Which will take 7-8 days, any faster and orbital mechanics say they are not coming back.

(March 4, 2017 at 12:34 am)Anomalocaris Wrote:

(March 4, 2017 at 12:30 am)Fireball Wrote: He can take a copy of the established science from the previous moon missions and save a ton of research time and money. The Saturn V booster and every thing that went with it is public knowledge, and what might not be public knowledge can be deduced via standard math, engineering  and physics. We've come a long way in the last 50 years. He's got people from a lot of aerospace companies in the area with the experience necessary. If I hadn't had "golden handcuffs" (too close to retirement to give up the last few years of increasing retirement benefits) at my job when he started up, I'd have jumped ship and gone to work there. Many of my associates did, and they love his company. It'll be interesting to watch, in any event.

Yeah, Saturn 5 also had a 100+ ton lifting capacity to low earth orbit.  I want to know the minimum mass that must be lifted into LEO to shoot 2 men around the moon.  Which will take 7-8 days, any faster and orbital mechanics say they are not coming back.

I'd have to go dig up some stored books to get at the numbers and formulas. I'm retired and currently building cabinets in my garage to store all the stuff I've accumulated in my working lifetime for those things that I want to do, now that I am retired. Maybe I'll find the orbital mechanics books and some such, or not.

IIRC, a Titan IV B had a 55,000 pound load to LEO and 11,000 pound load delivery to GEO (think MILSTAR). Delta IV Heavy, IIRC, promised 28,000 to GEO. I retired a little over 2 YA, and haven't really followed this, as I was a spacecraft guy, not a launch vehicle builder. I only remember what I read that was written by ULA, (and studied before that malformation was committed).

(March 3, 2017 at 11:34 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: Ain't getting me on one of those darn things.

Same here.  I'm a huge supporter of science and technology, but I've got no desire to travel in space, SpaceX's history of exploding rockets not withstanding.  The thought of roller coasters scare the ever-loving crap out of me, I'm not at all sanguine about my reaction to the acceleration and free fall *gulp* that go along with rocket travel.

Now if SOME people [glares at Alex] would get off the pot and develop an artificial gravity field, a la Almost Every Space Movie Ever Made, I'd sign up for the trip in a fast minute.

Boru

Dammit I need a higher paying job so I can go to the moon, too.

(March 3, 2017 at 1:59 pm)vorlon13 Wrote: extra long highway ?

plane ?


I'm not following at all.

Well yeah I don't see it much either I was just throwing ideas around, maybe laser pushing option could work.
Interestingly I don't remember in "2001 Space Odyssey" any breaking thruster from that spaceship when it lands on the Moon. It just lands on that pad that seems to take all that force.

(March 3, 2017 at 11:58 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: I think what he has in mind is not something that would decelerate and enter lunar orbit.   It's probably just putting a capsule into an highly eccentricity earth orbit that loops around but quite far from the moon.  

From nasaspaceflight.com:

Quote:The two unnamed passengers have already made a “significant deposit” to fly on the mission that will be a free trajectory flight profile that will take the Dragon 2 close to the surface of the Moon before reaching out up to 400,000 miles into deep space before returning to Earth.

So no lunar orbit. This will be the deepest humans have ever flown into space by far.