Engineer readers believe that taking tourists on a trip around the moon will have benefits for crewed spaceflight as a whole
There’s no doubt about the result of our poll last week on the plans announced by Elon Musk of Space X to take two paying passengers (who have apparently already paid deposits) on a return trip into lunar orbit in the company’s Dragon capsule that is currently being used to resupply the International Space Station. Of the 604 respondents, an emphatic 74% said that it would help advance manned spaceflight technology, and the majority of people commenting on the poll agreed. The remaining options received roughly equal backing, with 12% believing that the tourist flights would not happen, and 11% saying that they were an irrelevance. Only 3% declined to pick an option.
We look forward with interest to following Musk’s team’s progress on this project, and encourage readers to keep sending us their views on this subject.
Of course it will help advance manned spaceflight technology! Any experience gained is bound to be useful even if the motivation appears fatuous. The crew might be less inhibited on reporting alien encounters (if the conspiracy theories propounded on the H2 channel are to be believed!
I wonder if we going to get any comment from beardy lightyear on this matter or has it sunk with his submarine
I think regardless of whether Mr Musk is successful or not, it is almost inevitable that there will be some technological advances gained. And, if the two folk funding this never get their chance to visit space, we may see a new form of contract law arising vis-à-vis the refund of deposits….
Elon Musk has been like a breath of fresh air in pushing both space flight and pollutant-free, “Earthly” vehicles; a wake-up call to these corresponding technologies. On the former, how he has been successful in returning a rocket to its launch-pad, a potential method of landing on Mars.
This is the ultimate poker game. Space-X raises NASA, NASA raises Virgin and so on. There will be some technological gains but at what cost?
Well, at least it shows confidence-I hope
Sorry to be the party-pooper: but have we [human society] not advanced/passed beyond the delusions of grandeur that post, position and power exhibited by the RIPs (rich, in-place and powerful) seem to suggest are proper. I hope so.
Not sure I understand what you’re getting at here (stupid kid in class now waits to be pilloried by peers..)
If successful, the space tourism portion will clearly help to fund other parts of the industry.
Consider if the moon trip was done in a modular vehicle, with a small re-entry portion which could separate from the “living quarters”. The “living quarters” could then be kept in orbit and repeat trips would enable the assembly of the “International Space Hotel”. This would be very expensive, and financially very risky, without the fare paying passengers to ameliorate the costs.