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Space

SpaceX's All-Tourist Crew Safely Splashes Back Down to Earth (cnbc.com) 112

Watch the video here!

"SpaceX safely returned its Crew Dragon spacecraft from orbit on Saturday, with the capsule carrying the four members of the Inspiration4 mission back to Earth after three days in space..." reports CNBC: "Thanks so much SpaceX, that was a heck of a ride for us and we're just getting started!" Inspiration4 commander Jared Isaacman said from the capsule after touching down.

Elon Musk tweeted his congratulations to the crew shortly after splashdown.

The historic private mission — which includes Isaacman, pilot Sian Proctor, medical officer Hayley Arceneaux and mission specialist Chris Sembroski — orbited the Earth at an altitude as high as 590 kilometers, which is above the International Space Station and the furthest humans have traveled above the surface in years. A free-flying spaceflight, the capsule did not dock with the ISS but instead circled the Earth independently at a rate of 15 orbits per day.

Inspiration4 shared photos from the crew's time in orbit, giving a look at the expansive views from the spacecraft's "cupola" window.

This is the third time SpaceX has returned astronauts from space, and the second time for this capsule — which previously flew the Crew-1 mission for NASA on a trip that returned in May.

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SpaceX's All-Tourist Crew Safely Splashes Back Down to Earth

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  • Awesome, so glad everything was smooth, and this paves the way for more adventures in space for average people!

    • I guess we're about to find out how many rich people are willing to shell out for the novelty of making a few laps around earth. I suspect it's going to turn out to be a finite market.

      • I guess we're about to find out how many rich people are willing to shell out for the novelty of making a few laps around earth. I suspect it's going to turn out to be a finite market.

        How finite is International first and business class air travel today? Because that it where prices for this is heading, and eventually people will be using SpaceX rockets daily for intercontinental travel. Even the most awesome private jet pales in comparison.in terms of time to reach a major city on the other side of the g

        • I wonder how fast rocket travel will be after youâ(TM)ve counted in travel time to/from the spaceport on both ends of the trip? Spaceports are unlikely to be located near cities, for obvious reasons.

          • Spaceports are unlikely to be located near cities, for obvious reasons.

            You can land a spacecraft on an amount of land way smaller than a traditional airport.

            One example of a spaceport that would be used, would be an artificial island in the middle of the New York harbor... so hardly any transit time at all.

            In Denver you could easily put a spaceport on the edge of town no more inconvenient to get to than the airport now.

            If you are worried about rockets being explodey, they carry less fuel than international

            • That's definitely the dream, or vision, if you will. And I think that if we can keep our civilization, we will get there eventually. But launches/landings will need to get at least within an order of magnitude or better, comparing failure rates to airliners. F'rinstance, today's liners are able to fly and land with 75% engine failure.

              • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

                A bit of a meaningless statistic, but a Starship will also be able to land with 75% engine failure.

                • I didn't know. Impressive.

                  • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

                    Part of SpaceX's strategy is using lots of engines so there's lots of redundancy. We've already seen this on the test launches where they kept crashing until they started lighting multiple engines on landing then shutting down all but the one that was working best.

                    The reliability of the whole system is the relevant statistic, and engines are a big part of that, but not how many you need. Airliners used to need more than two engines if they wanted to fly over water because it was felt that twin engines didn'

            • You can land a spacecraft on an amount of land way smaller than a traditional airport.

              The amount of land used is nowhere near the most relevant factor. Jets produce up to about 150dB noise while rockets go up to 200dB. Jets are already too loud to be tolerated right in town, rockets are even louder, so they will have to be further away and not closer.

              If you are worried about rockets being explodey, they carry less fuel than international airliners... which fly over all modern cities today.

              Slightly less fuel, but they also have the problem that if they lose propulsion they come down wherever they're currently headed, while planes have some glide ability and you can decide where to drop them in most cases.

              Anyway this is a silly arg

        • Rocket lag will be murder, though.
          • I have a theory that jet lag will actually be a lot more tolerable when you don't add odd 12+ hours of extremely crappy plane "sleep". And here I am even including the lay-flat seats you can get in business class.

            Humorous side story - I was in a lay-flat seat on a flight to South America, when it came time to land the seat wouldn't go back up or do anything at all... so I had to land sitting up myself... not sure that was strictly adherent to regulation...

  • by iamnotx0r ( 7683968 ) on Saturday September 18, 2021 @07:47PM (#61809185)
    3 days in space. that is not a fly up and then down. This is real space travel.
    • As Kruschev said of Alan Shehpard's flight comparing to to Gagarin's: "Around the world, precisely, not just up and down." Hear that Bezos?

      • I notice everyone seems to be leaving Branson out of the picture here.

        As they should. A short jump up to near internationally recognized space in a dead-end system that will never do anything more is not even playing in the same league.

    • Should we "let" people take joyrides into space? If there is a market for it and it helps with the economy of scale of building the more interesting programs, why not?

      We "allow" F1 racing, private jets and all number of other things that most people can't afford to participate in that excrete a lot of CO2. The environmental impact whine seems rather disingenuous.

      Perhaps people who aren't filthy rich can "slum it" with sub-orbital services offered by Bezos and Branson.

      • lolz, Some one is jealous.
        • by Baki ( 72515 )

          Jealousy is good when justified.
          Extremely big differences in wealth are unjust, therefore jealousy is good.

          But of course, religion (10 commandmens) is once more being used as opium for the people.
          Many have started to believe they should accept their fate and not be jealous, when a happy few are using up much much more then their fair share of the earths remaining resources and budget.

          • But of course, religion (10 commandmens) is once more being used as opium for the people.
            Many have started to believe they should accept their fate and not be jealous,

            Yeah, those people are total lames. Which is somewhat ironic, because if it were literal and Jesus were real and present, he'd heal them for free. And then he'd remind them that rich people aren't going to heaven.

      • by steveha ( 103154 )

        Perhaps people who aren't filthy rich can "slum it" with sub-orbital services offered by Bezos and Branson.

        But Elon Musk and SpaceX have done more than anyone else to reduce the cost to go to space.

        https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/how-much-cheaper-are-spacex-reusable-rockets-now-we-know/ar-BB19IpqJ [msn.com]

    • It surprised me the flight was this short. Were there technical limitations that dictated this? (e.g. life support consumables)

  • by wolfheart111 ( 2496796 ) on Saturday September 18, 2021 @08:45PM (#61809285)
    Musk should start a site that trains the population what they need to know to take this flight.... is that possible.
    • These people got more training but when starship is going steady, the amount of training will be comparable to the short video you get before a flight with maybe more emphasis on space sickness.

      • When going to space the passengers is always going to be on the line, with millions of times more risk than a international flight plan covering the same distance over decades.

        When things go bad, they go bad very quickly. Minor item like minimum launch temperature of SRBs, the operations of a pressure release valve or the stability of foam insulation have killed nearly 2 dozen people out 567 in very spectacular fashion. . Add in 14psi oxygen environment and the why was it not worse over currenting at ta
  • This successful mission bought Elon and his companies billions in positive PR. It screams, "Tesla and SpaceX are the future."
  • made a sports bet and had a chat with Tom. Just seems so shallow and worthless on the whole.
    • It doens't matter what the people did (though I had read before they had some experiments planned?) but it was a useful mission in that they got more biometric data about prolonged exposure to weightlessness in average people compared to traditionally pretty fit astronauts.

      That alone would be very useful to longer term plans to have more people up in space, longer.

  • by couchslug ( 175151 ) on Saturday September 18, 2021 @09:56PM (#61809385)

    The meatbags inside matter FAR less than the flights and operational experience. Noobs care about the passengers but every mission is a training sortie for everyone supporting it.

    • The meatbags inside matter FAR less than the flights and operational experience. Noobs care about the passengers but every mission is a training sortie for everyone supporting it.

      Ah, not to put too fine a point on IT, but one of those "meatbags" kinda PAID for this whole thing.

      Meatbags are good for one thing in that aspect. Kinda also happens to be THE thing.

  • However just nitpicking: a passenger is not a member of the crew. Not even in a novel space ship.

  • I think it's fantastic that "civilians" have/are now flying in space. The gates of governmental space programs have been blown open.

    But, as I watched the splashdown of this recent flight, I wondered how come Elon hasn't taken a trip? For all his talk about space flight and human flights to Mars, as well as his willingness to spend on the launching of a Tesla into orbit, I would have thought that he would have wanted to get up there himself. Plus, with the other private spaceflight CEOs boasting of their lam

    • Plus, with the other private spaceflight CEOs boasting of their lame trips, I'd have thought Elon, the showman, would have wanted to take a trip and mock them.

      Elon allegedly wants to take the big trip to Mars, and thinks anything else is jerking off. He's been mocking them without even getting on the rocket, so if the primary goal is mockery then he doesn't have to bother going up himself. He's probably still having enough fun driving plaid-or-beyond-model Teslas that he doesn't need to go to space for a thrill.

      • And that would be 3 (or more) more days when he wasn't at the helm getting Model Y to Europe (and to RHD).

        Besides, the whole flight raised far more money for the cause (children's cancer research) because he *didn't* go.

        And he topped it up a bit more.

        And then *beyond that*, Imagine the SEC investigation into his $50m contribution (yes, I know a drop in the ocean for his reserves) if he had gone ... someone somewhere would have moaned that he had paid a "preferential" price for the seat to boot.

  • I am unreservedly happy they made it up and down safely and that this is the first of many flights.

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