SpaceX Launches 10th Crewed Mission, Third Fully Commercial Flight (arstechnica.com) 20
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: SpaceX on Sunday evening launched a commercial mission to the International Space Station carrying four people, including former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson. This "Axiom-2" mission was commanded by Whitson and carried a paying customer named John Shoffner, who served as pilot, as well as two Saudi Arabian mission specialists, Ali al-Qarni and Rayyanah Barnawi. Shoffner and the government of Saudi Arabia procured the seats on Crew Dragon from Axiom, a Houston-based spaceflight company that brokered the mission to the space station. Whitson is an employee of Axiom. The crew of four is flying the second fully private mission to the International Space Station and will spend about a week on board the orbiting laboratory before departing for Earth -- weather permitting -- on May 30.
The Axiom-2 crew members say they will conduct about 20 scientific experiments while on the station. It is not clear how much of this is legitimate science and how much of it is lip service, but certainly it is beneficial for NASA and other space agencies to gather human performance data from a wide variety of individuals like those on the Axiom-2 flight. Perhaps most significantly, the Axiom missions are expanding the envelope of human spaceflight. By purchasing such flights, these pioneering commercial astronauts are providing funding for the development of new technologies and habitats that should, over time, bring down the cost of access to space and living there.
For SpaceX, this was its 10th human space mission since the Demo-2 flight for NASA that launched in May 2020. In less than three years, the company has now put 38 people into orbit. Of these, 26 were professional astronauts from NASA and its international partners, including Russia; eight were on Axiom missions, and four on Jared Isaacman's Inspiration4 orbital free-flyer mission. Isaacman is due to make a second private flight on board Dragon, Polaris Dawn, later this year. [...] Also on Sunday, for the first time, SpaceX returned a Falcon 9 first stage to a ground-based landing pad near its launch site after a human spaceflight mission. The company was able to do this by squeezing a little bit more performance out of its workhorse rocket, which has now launched more than 230 times. You can watch a recording of the launch here.
The Axiom-2 crew members say they will conduct about 20 scientific experiments while on the station. It is not clear how much of this is legitimate science and how much of it is lip service, but certainly it is beneficial for NASA and other space agencies to gather human performance data from a wide variety of individuals like those on the Axiom-2 flight. Perhaps most significantly, the Axiom missions are expanding the envelope of human spaceflight. By purchasing such flights, these pioneering commercial astronauts are providing funding for the development of new technologies and habitats that should, over time, bring down the cost of access to space and living there.
For SpaceX, this was its 10th human space mission since the Demo-2 flight for NASA that launched in May 2020. In less than three years, the company has now put 38 people into orbit. Of these, 26 were professional astronauts from NASA and its international partners, including Russia; eight were on Axiom missions, and four on Jared Isaacman's Inspiration4 orbital free-flyer mission. Isaacman is due to make a second private flight on board Dragon, Polaris Dawn, later this year. [...] Also on Sunday, for the first time, SpaceX returned a Falcon 9 first stage to a ground-based landing pad near its launch site after a human spaceflight mission. The company was able to do this by squeezing a little bit more performance out of its workhorse rocket, which has now launched more than 230 times. You can watch a recording of the launch here.
Hmmm (Score:2)
two Saudi Arabian mission specialists
Wonder how much these guys paid? https://www.forbes.com/sites/m... [forbes.com]
How do you face Mecca when you're off planet?
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Interesting)
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Most of that stuff isn't even very new. For example, if they can't do the prayer motions in zero G, they can just nod their heads or imagine doing them. Same thing applies to people on Earth who can't move for some reason.
The funny thing is how God clearly didn't have the foresight to see that humans would one day leave Earth, and didn't make his prayer demands compatible with zero G and orbital motion.
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How do you face Mecca when you're off planet?
Look down.
Nice and all.. (Score:3)
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John Young was the commander of the first shuttle mission IIRC
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Re:Nice and all.. (Score:4, Insightful)
...without using Google, name the first astronauts to go into space with the space shuttle. Now name the first astronauts to board the ISS. We need more people who are of note, not just scientists, on these missions.
I think you are missing the bigger picture.
SpaceX is making space flight routine. They can deliver more tonnage to space than anyone else, including governments. If their current plans prosper they will have the ability to put more tonnage into space than everyone else put together.
https://www.spacexstats.xyz/#payloads-upmass-per-year [spacexstats.xyz]
The Space Shuttle was putting professional astronauts into space. These were fine people but they spent years working for NASA and training. What excites me is the thought of SpaceX sending the first welders into space, the first miners into space, heck, the first cooks into space. We are going to have more people in space and the need for every one of them to be a highly trained mission specialist will taper off quickly. "people who are of note"? I just want lots of people.
What I'm really excited by is the thought of actually colonizing places outside of Earth. Not sending a single-use expendable mission to put flags and footprints on the Moon, but build infrastructure and use that infrastructure. Build a "lunar cycler", a ship designed to go from Earth orbit to Moon orbit and back without ever landing anywhere and without any pieces falling off. Build a fuel and supplies depot in orbit. Use the depot to top off the food, oxygen, food, etc. on the lunar cycler. And then what do you have? You have the ability to go to the Moon any time you like, for an extremely low incremental cost.
Now add some kind of lander. Maybe the lander is just another SpaceX Starship. The lunar cycler hauls the lander to Moon orbit, and it lands. Heck, the cycler brings one or two hot spares, so that if there's an emergency, a rescue craft and rescue crew is right there.
After visiting the Moon becomes routine, use the lunar cycler to bring over supplies to build a moon base.
Reusable spacecraft, reusable infrastructure. Once you build it, everything gets easier and faster.
"Once you get to orbit you are halfway to anywhere in the solar system." -- Robert Heinlein
P.S. While I very much enjoyed Andy Weir's novel The Martian I felt that it was implausible. I figured (even back when that first came out) that by the time we are sending missions to Mars, SpaceX would be launching huge amounts of stuff. So the plot point where they desperately needed to send supplies to Mars and wondered where they could find a rocket didn't work for me. I figure if those events actually happened they could just call up SpaceX, and SpaceX would say "sure, we'll cancel one of the ten flights planned for this Tuesday and you can use one of those Starships to put those supplies into space."
The Martian shows space flight as being very much like it was in the 2010's, except somehow NASA managed to build a "Mars cycler" and some Mars landers. How they could do that without reusable spacecraft like Starship is beyond me.
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SpaceX probably could not run ten launches in one day, in this century.
This prediction will age exactly as well as if 100 years ago someone had said "Commercial airplane flights will not have ten flights in one day, in the 20th Century."
it would take over a week to prepare an emergency payload mission
I'm predicting that SpaceX will have their own space station, with a warehouse full of supplies, and a fuel depot. So launching supplies will be routine for them. And maybe it would just be "you don't need to
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What is this capability being used for though?
Some rich asshats on a joyride to the ISS, and tens of thousands of satellites into LEO to provide commercial internet services.
Not quite as romantic as the space race or doing it for the sake of science and advancing the human race. In fact, you could argue it's irresponsible.
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tens of thousands of satellites into LEO to provide commercial internet services
a) Developing a new technology from scratch (reusable rockets, which nobody else has managed to make) is expensive. I don't mind that they are going to make money from Starlink.
b) Starlink can be used for good things, like education in areas that could really use it.
SpaceX Connects Schools In Brazil's Amazon Region To Starlink Internet [tesmanian.com]
In fact, you could argue it's irresponsible.
You could, if you were narrow-minded.
Pff, why go to the ISS when Bezos goes to the moon (Score:1)
Why doesn't SpaceX aim a bit higher?
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Blue Origin is still suborbital until they're not. Ping me when New Glenn actually flies. Even Virgin Orbital (now bankrupt) made orbit.