Is Space Adventures Sending Customers Around the Moon?
Space Adventures will send tourists around the moon in 2018, Interfax
“The company Space Adventures in 2018 is going to send two space tourists circled the moon on the Russian spacecraft “Soyuz”, according to the company’s website. “Using the already proven Russian spacecraft flight, we will send two individual and one professional astronaut around the side of the moon. They will be 100 km from the lunar surface. We expect that our first mission will take place in 2018,” – said in a statement.”
Roscosmos Disavows Plan to Send Space Tourists to Moon, Moscow Times (June 2014)
“Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, will not be involved in a plan to send two space tourists on a flight around the Moon and was not consulted about the project, the federal space agency said. The mission, hatched by U.S.-based space tourism firm Space Adventures and a major Russian spacecraft manufacturer, Energia Rocket and Space Corporation, would see two space tourists travel to the Moon aboard a modified Russian Soyuz spacecraft by 2017. However, Roscosmos was kept out of the loop on the plan.”
Roscosmos Says Nyet To Space Adventures’ Moon Plan, earlier post
No.
Was that a NO or a Not Yet; ie: Show me the money first.
that would be a definate Not Nyet!
It makes sense that the Soyuz would need some sort of Service Module – which has never been developed. If we saw some Service Module being tested, this might be a realistic mission.
Or have I missed something??
I think you’re right to suspect that this isn’t “real” based on the lack of flying hardware. You’d surely fly an unmanned mission first, if only to convince potential customers you’re not selling them a one way ticket to oblivion.
I’m guessing this is more of a trial balloon to see if there would be any serious interest in such a mission.
Yes CharlesHouston, you are missing something. Soyuz has a service module, which was originally intended to be lunar capable.
Jeff2Space, this is based on “real” hardware that has flown an unmanned mission. Look up the Zond program – it’s pretty obvious from the press release that is what this proposal is based on. Granted, they are now proposing to use two Soyuz to do the mission, with an outbound rendezvous at ISS. Presumably that is because the Zond missions required a Proton booster, which has never been man-rated and does not have a launch abort system capability. That would seem to force docking to ISS with a fueled upper stage though, which seems like a non-trivial thing. It’s also not clear how a Zond type spacecraft would dock to ISS without an Orbital Module – unless they carry an extra one as far as ISS?
I agree that this doesn’t sound very likely to happen, but it is not as unprecedented as you guys seem to think.
I know about the Zond program. But much of that was done so very long ago, potential customers would want to see a test flight of the actual (surely somewhat modernized) hardware before buying a ticket. Zond was somewhat based on Soyuz, but do note that today’s Soyuz is not exactly the same as the Soyuz from the 1960s. So I’d expect a “modern” Zond to have similar differences which ought to be tested on a lunar fly-by.
I should have researched a little more before posting myself. Apparently there was a launch abort capability developed for Zond on Proton as well. It’s not clear why the ISS rendezvous wrinkle was added. Perhaps this is an Energia only game and they wanted to use only Soyuz launchers??
When first purposed the idea was to use a Soyuz that was already at ISS. After 6 months at the station it would return home via the moon by docking with a booster launched by Proton. This was when both shuttle and Soyuz were providing crew transportation and the tourist seats were available.
Didn’t Space Adventures fly James Cameron around the moon in a Soyuz a few years back?
Good to see they are keeping their flight rate up with another flight.
No.
Sure, you remember
It was the same year Keith flew his sub orbital flight with Virgin.
🙂
They’re keeping that Ralph Kramden single-stage-to-LLO engine under wraps. Wonder when they’ll announce it…
Is there hardware left over from the N1 days? The NK-33 engines were preserved. Perhaps some upper-stage hardware survived, or a service module. Or perhaps they weren’t so foolish as to misplace the plans for the hardware they did develop back then.
They surely wouldn’t use an N1 (it’s dead and buried). They’d most likely fly the Soyuz on top of a Proton.
“perhaps they weren’t so foolish as to misplace the plans for the hardware they did develop back then”
implying that the USA did? this is not correct. the Saturn V was a large, complex vehicle. there never was a single blueprint for one, but there were plans for each subcomponent and the major structures. each stage was built by a different contractor (First stage was Boeing, Second stage was North American Aviation, and Third stage was Douglas Aircraft Company), and each Saturn V was slightly different, due to continuous design refinement and engine improvements. before the paper blueprints were destroyed, all the plans were photographed and are preserved on microfilm in NASA’s archives. if you’d like to cough up about $10,000 in printing costs and archive fees, you can own a set of paper blueprints for a Saturn V.
Even if you have all the prints, tracking down all those parts subcontractors and specific fabrication tasks will be hard as they all disappeared decades ago.
That is true, and a very good point. also, while the Saturn V was at the bleeding edge of what was possible with rocket science in the 1960s, our materials, engineering, and electronics are so much better today, so why would you want to?
I have no reason but NASA is building a Saturn V type rocket. Though materials, engineering, and electronics are much better these days, HLVs are still very expensive, but then there’s lots of whining on the forums about that. My perception is a lot of knowledge and infrastructure has been lost which is one of the reasons why it taking so long to build such a item.
the lack of knowledge and infrastructure is part of it, though the efforts of the past 10 years or so has mostly rectified that… the other part is that people don’t fully appreciate what an enormous effort the Apollo program was. at its peak, it ate up 4.5% of the Federal budget and employed a total of 400,000 people, all focused on the goal of building a gargantuan rocket and the spacecraft and equipment necessary to put people on the moon (and bring them back).
NASA now gets 0.5% of the Federal budget, split up among many different projects, and employs only about 18,000 – 20,000 (plus some 40,000 – 60,000 via contractors). so there’s much fewer people with much less money working on many more things, so naturally it is going to take longer. a focused effort with more people and more immediate funds could definitely bring the SLS into existence faster. it might even cost less overall. but, oh well… NASA really can only do what Congress tells them to, with the money that Congress gives them.
Agreed.. just reading all the stuff out there about the attempts to reverse-engineer the F-1 (with some successes) has been fun. Hope they keep the work up.
Interesting – so the stories that circulate so widely on this topic are wrong then. Why aren’t they digitized and available? Is 1960s Apollo technology considered to be a 2010s state secret?
i would recommend you call up one of the NASA archivists and ask if any have been scanned and are available for download or purchase.
as to “why aren’t they available” the overwhelmingly vast majority of people on Earth wouldn’t understand the plans for decades-obsolete technology if they were put in front of them.
Imaging this on Launch date 2018 “Space tourist for around the moon flight, your flight has been transferred to SpaceX, due to absence of proper Soyuz hardware. Please follow Elon Musk, to the brand new Dragon V2, that’ll fly you around the moon. Have a pleasant flight and enjoy the few through the much bigger windows.”
Okay, are we now entering the realm where SpaceX is going to do everything for everybody? So much so that SpaceX is NOW building and testing hardware/modules/engines for a manned flight around the moon and back?
Sorry, SpaceX isn’t going to do everything we want. The chances of them flying tourists around the moon in FOUR YEARS is just as much a fairy tale as Space Adventures. Think next decade at the earliest.
Pun was intended, but before jumping to conclusions, you should read this: http://www.space.com/24628-… and this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
When Falcon Heavy and Dragon V2 can safely fly. It is a serious possibility. If Elon chooses to do so he can set man on the moon and bring them back safely, before the end of this decade….
(Thats’s a long time ago these words spoken 🙂 (pun intended 🙂
The point I make in a light hearted way is this. SpaceX works in a way that is very focused in attaining goals. The goals are set very effective and efficient and are along these line. ( I probably not have this 100% right, but you get the idea)
1) Make moderne and cost efficient launch vehicle
2) Do launches to orbit to earn money
3) Research reusability of launch vehicle, which will reduce cost by factor of about 100.
4) Make heavy version of launch vehicle
5) Make that version reusable.
Mission to Mars is now feasible coast wise.
Probably do first test mission to moon, to see what works and what needs improvement.
From the very start the goal Elon Musk has in mind is bringing people to Mars. Flying people to the moon is not a thing he has on his agenda, he told in one of his interviews, but might happen as it may turn out to be a convent test for falcon heavy and the manned capsule.
Keep in mind that this is the broader picture. In the mean time SpaceX is building an excelent track record. Reusability tests are progressing as planned according SpaceX. cargo is flow to ISS and brought back (only party that can do this at this moment)
So yes SpaceX is doing some need stuff out there and they deserve credit for that.
Oh yes they get a lot of help from Nasa, but all others US parties get or can get the same. So that is not a viable argument against SpaceX.
I think after the Apollo program was ended, space exploration was quite dull. LEO was the farthest people would go. SpaceX starts to bring a vision people can (or not) get exited about again. They have set the goal to bring people to Mars (and rally a lot of help from others to accomplish that on the way) and ultimately settle a colony on Mars.
No they are not going to do anything and are not the answer to all questions and probably will not fly tourist very soon (it’s not there core business, go to galactic or XCOr instead, to buy your ticket)
But at this moment SpaceX is the party with the strongest vision for human space exploration *and* is working very hard to accomplish the steps they think are needed to get there at, the least possible / acceptable coast. Which already has the effect of a hugh cost reduction for satellite launches to LEO & GEO.
That’s what a strong vision can do in a short time…
It’s not about futile details like if or if not SpaceX will take tourists around the moon in four years, these are not real goals. It’s about the vision that drives the development and keeps driving it for a longer period of time and ultimately makes access to space much cheaper. This is essential to get people to Mars and being able to regular supply a starting colony. That is a great vision, that’s SpaceX.
“I think after the Apollo program was ended, space exploration was quite dull. “
Maybe in terms of HSF, but space exploration has remained very interesting, exciting…and productive with Jupiter orbiters, Saturn Orbiters, and hell Mars is wrapped in orbiters, as well as mechanical critters crawling about! Add a slew of Solar observation platforms plus countless earth satellites among them the Great Observatory series. Dull? Not so sure.
I get your point; I’d rather be there, however.
HSF is exactly what I was referring to. Should have added the word “human”
Previously, Roskosmos said they had no knowledge of this project. However, with ESA-Soyuz on shaky ground, Sea Launch literally slipping below the surface and Proton having repeated technical problems, they might be hurting for foreign cash. In which case, they may be planning to look at this one again.
Especially because the last thing they want is a Falcon Heavy with a hastily modified Dragon v.2 taking off from LC-39A in two years or so to beat them to the punch again.
Look up the Zond missions in Wikipedia. The Soviets launched a Proton rocket with a Soyuz service and descent module around the moon about 5 times in the late 1960’s. Most carried a few test animals. Only one mission would have been survivable for a human crew due to the g-forces of re-entry. Apollo 8 shut down any Soviet attempt to use this system to launch a cosmonaut around the moon before they could work the bugs out of it.
True, but that was about 50 years ago. Soyuz has changed a lot over those 50 years. Just how much of that can be directly applied to a lunar Zond and how much of it would need reworked?
50 years of earth orbit missions. Zero BEO missions. Within the past 10 years Soyuz has done some ballistic re-entries due to equipment malfunctions, subjecting the crews to high g’s. Do a ballistic lunar re-entry instead of a skip re-entry and you are dead.
There’s nothing in the press release about arriving home alive.
Why? Because there is insufficient heat shield material (more could be added)? Because the required delta-V is too great? or is there a different reason inherent in moon return?
Yes to possible heat shield material and/or design issues. Also, you’d want the computer and software to be completely reliable on reentry. Soyuz will “default” to a ballistic reentry if it detects any sort of problem during reentry. This has happened quite a few times over the life of the program.
The point is that a ballistic reentry from LEO is a relatively safe thing to do. But, that is absolutely not going to be true for a ballistic reentry at the speeds we’re talking about for a lunar flyby mission. That would be a “bad day” for Space Adventures and a very bad day for the families of the “tourists” who perished.
I thought they were going to use the N-1 rocket, or are you mostly talking about the spacecraft?
In the past a Proton rocket and a Soyuz, minus the Orbital Module, were sent around the moon and back (at least 5 times with many more unsuccessful attempts). The Zond/Soyuz also had an escape rocket attached, so it must have been designed to carry a human crew. The Soviets called this the Zond program. You don’t need an N-1 unless you are carrying a lander.
Here’s a link to a picture of Proton and Zond/Soyuz being rolled out to the pad in the late 1960’s. Notice the Soyuz and escape rocket at the near end and a Proton rocket at the far end:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
Ah I see, so they were planning to use the Proton kind of as well, both were planned for human flight.
Nice photo. Wow think they have enough nozzles on the escape rockets? They like their rocket nozzles 🙂
The Soyuz rocket people say nobody has contacted them about a lunar passenger flight. If so, this might be stealth confirmation of the Russian’s super-secret Jules Vernesque space trampoline launcher.
Dmitri Rozgin says he will be aboard the first Soyuz trampoline flight with a big ole grin on his face the whole way… and enough vodka to be passed out drunk during the punishing 8 G reentry.
Russians…sheesh….
The next human to fly around the moon will be flying Spacex
The next human to fly around the moon will be flying in Orion. SpaceX won’t be ready for that for a while.
It will be eight years minimum before orion can do a lunar flyby.
More like 6 or 7 years minimum. Even so the timetable you laid out doesn’t invalidate my prediction that the next human to fly around the moon will be flying in Orion.
SpaceX would need to modify FH to carry a manned Dragon as well as extend Dragon’s life support capacity. I don’t doubt that SpaceX will eventually have a lunar flyby but I highly doubt that it will happen before EM-1. They will only have been flying to the ISS for 3 years if all goes well.
If the second flight, is not sheduled for until at least 2021-22 and that one is the first manned test that gerst said would not do a lunar flyby .. how can they do a lunar flyby in 2020 only six years from now?
EM-2 will be to Lunar DRO. I count that as flying around the moon.
The inside NASA schedule has EM-2 in December of 2020. This is the same schedule that everyone here sites for SLS launching in 2018.
The schedule Geyer mentions is late 2021 for EM-2 (claiming it budget, not technology thats delaying, but that is still money talks)
can you give me the NASA link for that .. I couldn’t see it on the site.
http://www.nasa.gov/sites/d…
“The second SLS mission, Exploration Mission 2, will launch Orion with a crew of up to four astronauts farther into space than humans have ever ventured.”
http://www.nasa.gov/sites/d…
“Exploration Mission-1: The 70-ton evolvable rocket will send an uncrewed Orion into lunar distant retrograde orbit, a large orbit around the moon that is farther into space than any human spaceflight system has ever ventured.
Exploration Mission-2 The first crewed mission will launch the Orion spacecraft along the same trajectory as that of Exploration Mission-1, bringing crew to space for up to two weeks.”
“Statement of William H. Gerstenmaier Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations National Aeronautics and Space Administration before the Subcommittee on Science and Space Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation . U. S. Senate”
“the first uncrewed launch of Orion and SLS on Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1) in FY 2018, and the first crewed launch of Orion and SLS on Exploration Mission-2 (EM-2) in FY 2021-22.”
This is what Gerstenmaier told the senate, 2021-22 … I also know he told a senate or house panel that he wanted a less agressive first flight then a lunar flyby . could not find my link for it.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/legi…
Fiscal Year 2021 has months in the calendar year 2020.
I think what you are remembering is Gerst saying that he would prefer that EM-2 was not the ARCM.
Been going over links .. I believe you are correct. He did start talking about a 30 hour hold in near earth before doing the TLI burn.
First crewed Apollo 7 October 1968 – LEO on 5th launch of Saturn IB
Second crewed Apollo 8 December 1968 – Lunar Orbit on third launch of Saturn V and first flight with crew
But Apollo 7 wasn’t the first time NASA had launched manned to LEO. That was 6 years before.
That is true. But SpaceX will have flown more than a dozen or so Dragon 1’s which is (under the extra skin of the V2.x) the same pressurized shell, self-rendezvousing avionics, thrusters, etc quite similar to the V2.x .
In the 3 years you specify, the Dragon x2.x should have flown LEO at least 6 times. They won’t have to repeat the all the hard won very basic lessons learned by Mercury and Gemini.
Not really. The FH is to an extraordinary degree an F9 1st and second stage with 2 attached F9 cores. The structure, interfaces, etc. are standard Falcon with Dragon attached.
Various quotes from SpaceX and Musk:
“Falcon Heavy would be, really, capable of launching people as soon as we’ve proven it out with a few launches, really. There’s no changes, that we are aware of, that we would make to the Falcon Heavy that would be required to launch people.“
“Falcon Heavy was designed from the outset to carry humans into space and restores the possibility of flying missions with crew to the Moon or Mars.”
“Falcon Heavy is also designed to meet the NASA human rating standards. For example, it is designed with structural safety margins that are 40% above the actual flight loads that it expects to encounter, as opposed to normal satellite launchers which are designed to only 25% above the flight loads. It also has engine-out capability, so you can lose multiple engines on the vehicle and still complete the mission. It has cross-feed between the cores which is the first time any rocket has been able to cross-feed propellant between the cores. Triple-redundant avionics. All of this is such that it can launch people if need be and do so safely.”
“As far as human standards are concerned, the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are designed to meet all of the published NASA human rating standards.”
I stand corrected on this point. I was under the mistaken impression that FH was being developed as a cargo only vehicle. My apologies.
True, but not such as stretch (assuming that Dragon is radiation protective for crew – I don’t know).
Dragon V2.x is designed for crew and cargo. With only 2 or 3 crew there is a lot of volume for food, water, waste, purification, etc.
More significantly is the vast trunk space. It could easily contain expendibles and needed hardware.
The Gemini from the mid-60’s is a perfect example. It flew for 14 days.
Its hollow, unpressurized “equipment module” held the expendibles and hardware:
Good points yales. I don’t doubt that SpaceX will have a lunar flyby at some point and I am looking forward to it. That said I don’t believe Dragon V2 has rad hardened computers. Modern computers are way more vulnerable than the ones in the 60s.
I don’t foresee anyone going to the moon in less than 8 years.