Space Stuff

[redrumloa]

I expect it to be a failure, but still looking forward to it if it actually happens. Saying it will fail is not even a knock on SpaceX here. Until very recently almost every mission to Mars has failed be it NASA, Russia, etc.

 

[Robert]

I expect it to be a failure, but still looking forward to it if it actually happens. Saying it will fail is not even a knock on SpaceX here. Until very recently almost every mission to Mars has failed be it NASA, Russia, etc.

I kinda do and kinda don't. SpaceX track record is fantastic and I fully expect them to eventually soft-land a rocket on Mars. I doubt it will be within the timescales Musk is predicting but I think it will happen. Whether that then leads to any of the other stuff is far more speculative. The last bit, about a self-sustaining city, seems fanciful in our lifetimes but I used to think reusable rockets wouldn't happen while I was still alive so I hope I'm wrong again.

 

[Robert]

Another milestone for SpaceX:

Billionaire businessman Jared Isaacman has become the first non-professional astronaut to walk in space during the Polaris Dawn mission.

"Back at home we all have a lot of work to do, but from here Earth sure looks like a perfect world," he said as he stepped out into space for the first time.

Carrying four private citizens, including SpaceX engineers Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis, the SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket launched into space on Tuesday and will spend up to five days in orbit.

Mr Isaacman funded the mission, which is the second privately-crewed mission from SpaceX - the spaceflight company founded by Elon Musk.

Their spacecraft, called Resilience, will go into an orbit that will eventually take them up to 870 miles (1,400km) above the planet. No human has been that far since Nasa's Apollo programme ended in the 1970s.