Japan Billionaire Seeks 'Crew' For Moon Trip (reuters.com) 44
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa on Wednesday launched a search for eight people to join him as the first private passenger on a trip around the moon with Elon Musk's SpaceX. He had originally planned to invite artists for the weeklong voyage slated for 2023. Reuters reports: The rejigged project will "give more people from around the globe the chance to join this journey. If you see yourself as an artist, then you are an artist," Maezawa said. The first stage of the application process runs to March 14. The entrepreneur, who sold his online fashion business Zozo Inc to SoftBank in 2019, is paying the entire cost of the voyage on SpaceX's next-generation reusable launch vehicle, dubbed the Starship.
Re: Should limit it to beautiful women. (Score:1)
Re: Should limit it to beautiful women. (Score:2)
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> Goal: First lunar orbit orgy ever.
Like you're marked "-1, Flamebait", but I think people are just envious that you got an immature response as first post. I doubt this billionaire is doing this for a space orgy, but if, for some reason, he was, I'd still be glad someone was willing to fund some space travel. Would it be ideal? No, but we are basically monkeys so I wouldn't hold the grudge, you know? It's for a good cause.
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> Goal: First lunar orbit orgy ever.
Like you're marked "-1, Flamebait", but I think people are just envious that you got an immature response as first post. I doubt this billionaire is doing this for a space orgy, but if, for some reason, he was, I'd still be glad someone was willing to fund some space travel. Would it be ideal? No, but we are basically monkeys so I wouldn't hold the grudge, you know? It's for a good cause.
Whereas there have been plenty of missions to the moon and it's not really scientifically interesting, if people have had sex in space [slate.com] then they failed to write it up in the journals. This would probably be one of the more valuable scientific experiments they could do. Given that the space fantasists think we're going to escape to other stars, this seems like something someone has to check. What positions work? How do you keep the mess under control in zero-G? Does fertilisation work without gravity? I
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An erection has nothing to do with gravity. It is based on blood pressure.
Why one might think fertilisation does not work without gravity is beyond me. Did you skip biology classes?
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Dumb conversation: "Can fertilization work without gravity"
Valid conversation: "Is fertilization affected by gravity"
Go ahead and beat up that strawman on top while ignoring that it's a valid topic. Especially since we already have people (well, women) who vary position to exploit gravity with regard to fertilization.
Re: Should limit it to beautiful women. (Score:1)
An erection has nothing to do with gravity.
I was told I wouldn't need Viagra if I stood on my head.
Re: Should limit it to beautiful women. (Score:1)
Re: Should limit it to beautiful women. (Score:2)
What cause would that be?
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"selections were based purely upon my superior sense of smell to determine the histocompatability of those needed to build another human race"
A three hour tour... a three hour tour (Score:2)
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consider.
half of the crew are artists.
and the other half to be poets
Falcon heavy please! (Score:2)
Plan A was to do a lunar fly-by in a Dragon capsule, launched by Falcon heavy.
I'd much rather see that in a year or so, than wait another ten or more years for Starship to be human-rated, if ever.
Maybe somewhat sooner, we could see a modified Starship used as a ferry between earth orbit (ISS?) and the moon.
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Personally, I'd rather see Starship used as a ground to LEO vehicle, and make an orbit-orbit vehicle for going LEO to Lunar orbit. Ditto Mars....
Re:Falcon heavy please! (Score:4, Interesting)
Starship is designed to use the atmosphere to handle all but a tiny amount of the needed braking on return. Braking into LEO on rocket power to meet up with a separate ground-to-LEO vehicle would require enormous amounts of propellant, and braking using aerodynamic drag means carrying almost everything you would need to just land, plus likely more propellant to circularize orbit.
A ground-to-orbit vehicle makes more sense on the moon where there's no atmosphere and it's less costly to brake into orbit, and that's essentially what the HLS variant of Starship is.
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braking using aerodynamic drag means carrying almost everything you would need to just land, plus likely more propellant to circularize orbit.
Are you sure? Earth-intercept to LEO is only 3260m/s delta-V, about 30% of the delta-V to ground. (so 10% of the kinetic energy if that matters?)
And you can take your time doing multiple orbits with perigee through the upper atmosphere. Mars orbiters use this technique with no heat-shield.
Also, an orbit-to-orbit shuttle needs only a fraction of the thrust of a lander, even on the moon. So you save a huge amount of mass in engines and support structure as well.
Thirdly, you can use a small nuclear-thermal
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Yes, I'm sure. Your "only 3260 m/s" is almost half the total delta-v of a fully fueled Starship, and almost 50 times the propulsive delta-v needed for the landing.
Multiple passes through the upper atmosphere take time, aerobraking slowly enough to avoid the need for heat shielding could take literally months of slowly dropping apogee down through the radiation belts. The same problem applies to low-thrust electric propulsion systems. If you're carrying people, you want to directly reenter and land.
As for nu
Re: Falcon heavy please! (Score:1)
I'd much rather see that in a year or so, than wait another ten or more years for Starship to be human-rated, if ever.
And that's the same bullshit reasoning that led to our unsustainable endeavor to leave a flag and some footprints on the Moon fifty years ago and not go back since.
More money than brains? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:More money than brains? (Score:5, Funny)
The article says Maezawa told people the moon trip cost more than his Jean-Michel Basquiat painting which was $110 million. I'm no art expert but it looks like a Mr. Potato head that was run over by an asphalt spreader. https://news.artnet.com/exhibi... [artnet.com]
If you couldn't tell that it was even a face, it would probably be worth more.
Does he accept favours? (Score:2)
Willing to do most things for a trip into space. White, slightly overweight male, can act like an "artist".
A tin can with billionaires? (Score:3)
Shot up to the moon with a slight possibility of certain death?
What's not to like?
Re:A tin can with billionaires? (Score:5, Insightful)
Death is certain for all of us. There is a slight probability of death when I drive downtown this morning.
Would I risk a probability of death to walk on the Moon? In a heartbeat!
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It's not the risk of death to walk on the Moon that stops me (ignoring cost and access, of course!), it's the days of confinement in a small metal shell with vacuum on the other side of it, in freefall with the nausea and the spinal expansion and back pain that brings.
It'd be a hell of an experience, but I'm just too concerned it might be a hellish experience.
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" it's the days of confinement in a small metal shell with ..." ...billionaires! Oh, the horror!
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I hadn't considered it, but yes, that's probably worse. Can you imagine those hugely pampered, privileged individuals discovering they're going to be shitting in diapers while strapped in a seat for upwards of a week, suffering from back pain and nausea and that all their wealth and power will do precisely jack shit to make it more comfortable, dignified, or faster?
You'd be looking around the cockpit for things to bludgeon them to death with before the second day had passed.
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Hell, I'd go even knowing it was a one-way trip.
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Death is certain for all of us. There is a slight probability of death when I drive downtown this morning.
Would I risk a probability of death to walk on the Moon? In a heartbeat!
Unfortunately this trip doesn't include a Lunar landing. It's just an out-and-back-again orbit of the Moon. Its distinguishing characteristics from Apollo 8 are a much farther Earth apogee than any Apollo mission and a whole lot more room than Apollo astronauts had. As others have posted, the original plan was to just take a Dragon capsule launched on Falcon Heavy in a mission about as Apollo as it gets. Fortunately Maezawa allowed himself to be argued into upgrading to a Starship, which will be a lot c
Re:hee (Score:4, Funny)
I think you have to apply to Yusaku Maezawa, not just post on here.
Take a flat earther or 2 (Score:2)
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Sounds like a real life game of Amoung Us (Score:3)
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Nice try, throwing your billionaire imposter buddy under the bus. You have to be the other imposter.
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Invite a Flat Earther (Score:2)
Shove him (or her) out the airlock (in a vac suit, of course) if they still don't believe it's all real.
Early Adopters pay the price (Score:2)
He's not wrong (Score:2)
If he's advertising "you can be the first...tourist to the moon".
I mean, if it goes wrong, you can also be the first civilian tourism casualties to the moon as well.