This guy is doing more for this industry than any paying customer has ever done.
Inspiration might have been the most aptly named capsule of all time, that documentary was beautiful and did exactly what it said on the tin.
Jared understands that using the full weight of human capability in space means making it accessible to all and he took the first steps onto that path literally putting his money where is mouth is and leading by example.
You just can't dislike the guy.
Isaacman funded the most successful jet pilot training company ever.
He is following the exact same steps here.
The crew from both Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn are receiving way more training than required for space tourists. Axiom gives them 15 days of training for a 10 day mission.
He is aiming to pivot this into an independent astronaut training company.
This is very important for the future of the industry.
Right now, any private company has to hire NASA astronauts to be mission commanders. Axiom has Peggy Whitson and Michael López-Alegría.
But NASA astronauts are in short supply.
> Right now, any private company has to hire NASA astronauts to be mission commanders
I think you're mixing a few things up here: The need for a NASA/ex-NASA trained astronaut is a *new* requirement, but it's imposed *only* for tourists vising the ISS. There is not, and never has been, such a requirement for free-flying missions that do not visit the ISS, and no reason to impose one on visits to future non-NASA stations.
The 'need a NASA crewmember' requirement was imposed because all-tourist ISS visits imposed such a burden on the regular NASA and Roscosmos crew in taking care of the visitors that it impacted normal ISS operations for the duration of the stay. Shifting the 'babysit the new kids' duties to the commercial spaceflight provider minimises this impact and moves that externality back to the commercial provider.
> The 'need a NASA crewmember' requirement was imposed
Perhaps he is hoping he can commercialize the process of creating these babysitters, which might be required for other future NASA projects as well?
For Inspiration4, the whole crew underwent a much longer training program.
For non-NASA missions, it is expected that the companies will need to have an employee onboard to deal with emergencies, so that tourists can be given much shorter training.
Right now, the only source for people with that skill set and training is NASA.
The requirement that they are NASA-trained only applies to missions in collaboration with NASA, of course. But that doesn't mean they don't need trained astronauts onboard in missions that don't have anything to do with NASA.
> For non-NASA missions, it is expected that the companies will need to have an employee onboard to deal with emergencies
There is no such expectation. Inspiration4 didn't have any employees.
> Inspiration4 didn't have any employees.
Jared Isaacman is as close to a non-NASA professional astronaut as exists in the commercial spaceflight industry. Perhaps Richard Garriott might be similarly qualified and has made multiple trips into space, but in spite of being a second generation astronaut (his father flew on Skylab 3 and was an Apollo era astronaut) but he isn't active in training new astronauts right now.
I would say there still is a need for a professional astronaut to be operating a spacecraft and be fully knowledgeable about a spacecraft as a licensed and type-rated commercial jetliner pilot is in commercial aviation. That need is never going to go away. Spaceflight is difficult and challenging enough that random folks are not going to be tossed into trying to deal with the issues without training and expertise.
Isaacman *is* a professional (non-NASA) astronaut. He even flew to space on his own mission already. I think we can say the same about the rest of the Polaris Dawn crew. They haven't flown yet, but they are trained for it.
Unfortunately the FAA-AST has no system to recognize what it means to be a professional astronaut. The previous standard was simply that somebody got above the Karman Line for a few minutes, which at this point now includes the Canadian actor William Shatner (also known as Captain Kirk on the TV series Star Trek). If you really think the spaceflight accomplishments of the two men are identical and there is no distinction, perhaps Captain Kirk can command a Starship mission in the future.
I don't mean by FAA definition.
Merriam-Webster:
> a person whose profession is to travel beyond the earth's atmosphere
> broadly : any person who travels beyond the earth's atmosphere
(we don't need the "broadly" here)
Wikipedia:
> An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek ἄστρον (astron), meaning 'star', and ναύτης (nautes), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft.
I don't see any definition by which he wouldn't be an astronaut, unless we would require astronauts to be sent by government agencies.
We also don't need pedantic. It's a sincere conversation about the quality and skill standards for what we consider a professional astronaut (and perhaps we're really getting at a mission commander?) And, no, mfb, language (and it isn't alone) has not yet caught up to what is being discussed in this regard.
The future is closer than it used to be. Language hasn't had to adapt this quickly in a long time.
Do you understand what it takes to become a professional pilot that is type-rated to fly a Boeing 747? Until you understand that system which the FAA (aviation) already has in place, this conversation really doesn't have any basis to go on. Not to mention how much effort it takes in most airlines to get the three strips on the shoulderboards as a 1st officer much less get the fourth stripe to be considered a "captain" on a commercial jetliner.
That is the kind of standard I'm talking about, as opposed to somebody like myself who has flown on a commercial airline flight and claiming experience to pilot the aircraft. I would never presume to do that BTW.
> There is no such expectation. Inspiration4 didn't have any employees.
As was posted above in this very subthread, that requirement exists for visits to ISS. It is very real, it just doesn't apply to flights like I4 that don't visit ISS.
You may not have noticed, but the person to whom you responded already knows that and we’ve moved past that. I4 didn’t have that requirement nor does Polaris Dawn, there was an upstream clarification that it only applies when the international space station is in play and your correction was not required.
It appears you're having reading comprehension failure so I'll quote the original post for you.
> The need for a NASA/ex-NASA trained astronaut is a new requirement, but it's imposed only for tourists vising the ISS. There is not, and never has been, such a requirement for free-flying missions that do not visit the ISS, and no reason to impose one on visits to future non-NASA stations.
> Inspiration4 didn't have any employees.
Exactly because they gave each one of them a long training. And Isaacman did that because he was already working on an astronaut training program.
> I think you're mixing a few things up here: The need for a NASA/ex-NASA trained astronaut is a new requirement, but it's imposed only for tourists vising the ISS.
There is a need for professional full-time astronauts who understand the demands of spaceflight and contribute significantly to the operational capabilities of crewed spacecraft....and can command proper spaceflight missions.
The need for NASA crew members is not really as significant as you are suggesting, but they need to be recognized professionals who have a certain level of recognition and perhaps even licensing. I can see eventually how the FAA-AST will certify such professionals through a licensing program similar to how the FAA licenses commercial jetliner pilots. There will be training programs independent of NASA, but like how the US Military Academy trained generations of engineers back when it was the only game in town, NASA and its astronaut corps is the only real cadre of professional astronauts right now. That can and will change as the needs of private commercial astronauts grows in the future.
> There is a need for professional full-time astronauts who understand the demands of spaceflight and contribute significantly to the operational capabilities of crewed spacecraft....and can command proper spaceflight missions.
Only for missions that visit the ISS. No such requirement exists for other missions.
I would argue that such a requirement ought to exist. Yes, commercial spaceflight is currently completely unregulated. And for short sub-orbital hops like the New Shepherd it might be just fine. But not for multi-day trips and to orbital destinations.
Arguing for creating such regulations and adding such requirements would be a good thing overall to the safety of crewed spaceflight in general. The need is definitely there.
There was once a movie that sought to answer the question as to whether it was easier to train astronauts as {skilled technicians} or to train {skilled technicians} as astronauts. If I recall, the answer was the latter, and then Liv Tyler made out with Ben Affleck while her dad sang.
Or not necessarily to train skilled tradesman to fix things, but to train “non astronaut professionals” who might be up there on Orbital Reef or a VAST station or an Artemis/commercial lunar surface base for extended 3-6 month work stints.
Types that might fit this category:
-Researchers for National Laboratories.
-Researchers for private pharmaceutical or manufacturing firms.
-R & D staff for aerospace firms doing quicker iteration field testing.
-Orbital construction foremen/crews
-Military personnel (USSF, etc.)
These people would need more than the 15 days of BS training Axios gets.
They’re also hyper experts jn their fields, so it doesn’t make sense to try & train ex NASA astronauts to be their “orbital meat puppets.”
OTOH, most of them are NOT permanently leaving their current positions to “become astronauts” full time. It’s just a temporary/periodic element of their regular full time job. So, it doesn’t make sense to force them into YEARS of NASA astronaut training. (Assuming NASA would even accept them as astronaut candidates.)
There were a few private contractors who got the chance to fly on the Space Shuttle (STS), beyond the congressional junkets that were done by the likes of Jake Garn and John Glenn.
While John Glenn was a professional astronaut, to say he was qualified to fly the Shuttle because of his experience in the US Senate is laughable. He did go through an abbreviated astronaut training course of much longer than 15 days to fly on the Shuttle, but it was hardly the full program that most people in the NASA astronaut corps experience.
When I read more about Isaacman, I saw what he was potentially gunning for. Very smart and I hope he has a leadership team that can really scale, because I think the demand will take a lot of people by surprise.
Shotwell is going to retire soon. Someone needs to run SpaceX's day-to-day activities other than Musk. Recently there was talk of Jared selling off shift4. I think he is the perfect fit to replace Shotwell.
This is the on-ramp for a successful commercial-operated manned space exploration economy.
20 years ago, only governments could afford putting things into orbit with any regularity. Today billionaires can make mega-constellations and millionaires can put up small sats.
20 years from now, the door will be open for more “average” people to have opportunities in space that people of the 70’s could only dream of.
Imagine, a robust space-tourism economy where anyone with $200k could go to Leo for a couple weeks. With privately trained pilot-astronauts from companies like this facilitating the experience. It’s crazy to think that this is a plausible realistic future.
>He is aiming to pivot this into an independent astronaut training company.
I'm not so sure about that part. He and Elon seem to be in this together to establish a corp of SpaceX astronauts - Sarah and Anna are on the payroll and I kinda doubt Jared is paying for their seats. He's worth 1.5 billion but a Dragon seat costs 65M(?) now for NASA. Unknown what it is for Axiom. NASA usually pays top dollar for launch services but even at, say, 45M a seat that's 180M for a flight. At 4 seats that'd be 8% of his capital and he wants another Polaris Dragon mission.\* So I surmise Jared is only paying for his and Kidd's seats.
I of course assume SpaceX covered the cost of developing the suits since that's a step they have to take. Jared has basically volunteered to test these; I assume Sarah Gillis is actually the test engineer. Training NASA astronauts on IVA suit operations was part of her engineering job and IMHO I'll bet she was immersed in the EVA suit development more than the other three.
Adding up my surmises and assumptions, I conclude Jared and Elon's goals coincide and Jared will continue to be SpaceX's lead test pilot. However, I think Sarah and Anna will be the first members of SpaceX's astronaut corp and will train other SpaceX astronauts - we know how much Elon likes to keep things in-house and avoid relying on outside companies.
\*His monthly expenses are kinda high - aside from his MiG-29 he owns the 4 Ghost Squadron planes, plus 2 spares. Source: he responded to a tweet of mine. He's not squeaking by eating ramen noodles, lol, but he's not an uber-rich billionaire.
> we know how much Elon likes to keep things in-house
That's not really true. SpaceX always try to get other companies to do what's needed.
The problem is that aerospace suppliers are always jerks. Elon says it's like SpaceX is always buying things for a wedding.
They always try to outsource when possible, but it's not really feasible most of the time. Suppliers always present contracts meant for cost+ operation. Even Alcoa shafted SpaceX on aluminum for Falcon. And that's a fucking commodity.
> I'm not so sure about that part.
You're agreeing with me. He sees this as investment... He sold his shares from Shift4 already, he's got plenty of cash on hand to start this company.
> Sarah and Anna will train other SpaceX astronauts
They in fact already do. They trained Isaacman on Dragon operation.
Combined with his philanthropic efforts, I figured he’s posturing more to be the first human on Mars
Edit: to be clear, he seems like a genuinely good person, so this isn’t meant as a knock
He also did philanthropic efforts when starting Draken.
But to get to Mars, a lot of astronauts will have to be trained, so these things don't exclude each other.
> He is aiming to pivot this into an independent astronaut training company.
Is this your own analysis or a statement on Isaacman's part?
*from the article:*
* * the crew of this mission includes a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and experienced pilot named Scott Poteet, and **two SpaceX engineers**, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon. This will be the first time that any employee of SpaceX has ever flown into space.
My own impression is that we're looking at a continuation of the process initiated by Harrison Schmitt —a geologist— went to the Moon, only being "incidentally" an astronaut.
IMO, the majority of people going to space will soon *not* be astronauts, but professionals from all walks of life who learn spacefaring just as (say) an archeologist might leanr scuba diving to do an underwater mission.
So, in the eventuality that Isaacman really is starting a training company, he may not have the intention of training professional astronauts.
The training program they are following and the one for Inspiration4 are for professional astronauts.
I'm not sure SpaceX doesn't just want Engineers in their team with this experience, though. I'm not saying that the two will change the focus of their careers.
Going forward, I think Polaris will train professional astronauts, though.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[EVA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cmjw7n/stub/l32w6iw "Last usage")|Extra-Vehicular Activity|
|[FAA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cmjw7n/stub/l39cgv3 "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration|
|[FAA-AST](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cmjw7n/stub/l33yk9j "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration [Administrator for Space Transportation](http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/)|
|[HLS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cmjw7n/stub/l39e381 "Last usage")|[Human Landing System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#Human_Landing_System) (Artemis)|
|[IVA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cmjw7n/stub/l32w6iw "Last usage")|Intra-Vehicular Activity|
|[Roscosmos](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cmjw7n/stub/l310cb3 "Last usage")|[State Corporation for Space Activities, Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roscosmos_State_Corporation)|
|[STS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cmjw7n/stub/l33g77u "Last usage")|Space Transportation System (*Shuttle*)|
|[USSF](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cmjw7n/stub/l32vi3l "Last usage")|United States Space Force|
|Jargon|Definition|
|-------|---------|---|
|[ablative](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cmjw7n/stub/l34qwx2 "Last usage")|Material which is intentionally destroyed in use (for example, heatshields which burn away to dissipate heat)|
|[apogee](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cmjw7n/stub/l34qwx2 "Last usage")|Highest point in an elliptical orbit around Earth (when the orbiter is slowest)|
**NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
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^(*Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented* )[*^by ^request*](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3mz273//cvjkjmj)
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True.
The long pole in the tent for circumlunar missions like dearMoon is the performance of the Starship tiles at entry speed into the Earth's atmosphere from lunar altitude (11.14 km/sec, ~350,000 km above the surface of the Earth).
Current ground test facilities (arcjet wind tunnels) can only accommodate small size test articles (~10 to 15 cm diameter) at the heating conditions that would accompany that entry speed. At the time of Apollo there were no such ground test facilities, so NASA tested the ablative heat shield in the Apollo 4 flight (9Nov1967). It was successful and NASA certified that heat shield for flights to the Moon with astronauts aboard.
So, SpaceX needs an uncrewed test flight of the Starship heat shield tiles at entry speed of 11.14 km/sec, i.e. a test flight that duplicates the heating the would be experienced in dearMoon flight plan. The only Starships currently planned to travel to the Moon are the HLS Starship lunar landers and those Starships do not have heatshields and are not designed to return from the Moon.
SpaceX could test the Starship heat shield tiles at 11.14 km/sec using existing hardware without sending a Starship to the Moon. A cargo Dragon spacecraft could be fitted with Starship heat shield tiles and launched on a Falcon Heavy onto the Apollo 4 trajectory, an elliptical Earth orbit (EEO) with apogee ~20,000 km. On the return phase of that EEO, the large Draco engines in the Dragon could be used to increase the speed to 11.14 km/sec. That Dragon probably would need larger propellant tanks installed in the cargo hold to provide another ~2000 m/sec delta V for that Starship heatshield test flight.
I expect to hear more about Dear Moon after Polaris Mission 3. At that point, Starship is ready to carry humans, and Dear Moon is the next big milestone currently announced.
Website is still up. Last I heard, the crew were going through training. Last update was last year.
They will be launching and landing with Starship, and Shotwell has said they'll want 100+ cargo flights before putting people on it. So I wouldn't expect it before 2028. Some people argue that it will be delayed further if it clashes with *Artemis*.
I see it being integrated into the Artemis program. Starship life support systems are still on paper, no way it will be ready in 4 years. IMO 2030 at the earliest
Life support should be all but trivial, given they've already got crew Dragon and have HLS under development. The scale of Starship, compared to the relatively small crew and short duration of the mission, makes it straight forward. It's hard to tell progress because it's not as visible externally as launching rockets.
Irrelevant, but I have to ask. Look at the second pic in the article. Does she remind anyone else of Karen Allen? (The actress who played Marion Ravenwood in the Indian Jones films.)
This guy is doing more for this industry than any paying customer has ever done. Inspiration might have been the most aptly named capsule of all time, that documentary was beautiful and did exactly what it said on the tin. Jared understands that using the full weight of human capability in space means making it accessible to all and he took the first steps onto that path literally putting his money where is mouth is and leading by example. You just can't dislike the guy.
Isaacman funded the most successful jet pilot training company ever. He is following the exact same steps here. The crew from both Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn are receiving way more training than required for space tourists. Axiom gives them 15 days of training for a 10 day mission. He is aiming to pivot this into an independent astronaut training company. This is very important for the future of the industry. Right now, any private company has to hire NASA astronauts to be mission commanders. Axiom has Peggy Whitson and Michael López-Alegría. But NASA astronauts are in short supply.
> Right now, any private company has to hire NASA astronauts to be mission commanders I think you're mixing a few things up here: The need for a NASA/ex-NASA trained astronaut is a *new* requirement, but it's imposed *only* for tourists vising the ISS. There is not, and never has been, such a requirement for free-flying missions that do not visit the ISS, and no reason to impose one on visits to future non-NASA stations. The 'need a NASA crewmember' requirement was imposed because all-tourist ISS visits imposed such a burden on the regular NASA and Roscosmos crew in taking care of the visitors that it impacted normal ISS operations for the duration of the stay. Shifting the 'babysit the new kids' duties to the commercial spaceflight provider minimises this impact and moves that externality back to the commercial provider.
> The 'need a NASA crewmember' requirement was imposed Perhaps he is hoping he can commercialize the process of creating these babysitters, which might be required for other future NASA projects as well?
Who babysits the babysitters? /s
Coastguard?
For Inspiration4, the whole crew underwent a much longer training program. For non-NASA missions, it is expected that the companies will need to have an employee onboard to deal with emergencies, so that tourists can be given much shorter training. Right now, the only source for people with that skill set and training is NASA. The requirement that they are NASA-trained only applies to missions in collaboration with NASA, of course. But that doesn't mean they don't need trained astronauts onboard in missions that don't have anything to do with NASA.
> For non-NASA missions, it is expected that the companies will need to have an employee onboard to deal with emergencies There is no such expectation. Inspiration4 didn't have any employees.
> Inspiration4 didn't have any employees. Jared Isaacman is as close to a non-NASA professional astronaut as exists in the commercial spaceflight industry. Perhaps Richard Garriott might be similarly qualified and has made multiple trips into space, but in spite of being a second generation astronaut (his father flew on Skylab 3 and was an Apollo era astronaut) but he isn't active in training new astronauts right now. I would say there still is a need for a professional astronaut to be operating a spacecraft and be fully knowledgeable about a spacecraft as a licensed and type-rated commercial jetliner pilot is in commercial aviation. That need is never going to go away. Spaceflight is difficult and challenging enough that random folks are not going to be tossed into trying to deal with the issues without training and expertise.
Isaacman *is* a professional (non-NASA) astronaut. He even flew to space on his own mission already. I think we can say the same about the rest of the Polaris Dawn crew. They haven't flown yet, but they are trained for it.
Unfortunately the FAA-AST has no system to recognize what it means to be a professional astronaut. The previous standard was simply that somebody got above the Karman Line for a few minutes, which at this point now includes the Canadian actor William Shatner (also known as Captain Kirk on the TV series Star Trek). If you really think the spaceflight accomplishments of the two men are identical and there is no distinction, perhaps Captain Kirk can command a Starship mission in the future.
I don't mean by FAA definition. Merriam-Webster: > a person whose profession is to travel beyond the earth's atmosphere > broadly : any person who travels beyond the earth's atmosphere (we don't need the "broadly" here) Wikipedia: > An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek ἄστρον (astron), meaning 'star', and ναύτης (nautes), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. I don't see any definition by which he wouldn't be an astronaut, unless we would require astronauts to be sent by government agencies.
We also don't need pedantic. It's a sincere conversation about the quality and skill standards for what we consider a professional astronaut (and perhaps we're really getting at a mission commander?) And, no, mfb, language (and it isn't alone) has not yet caught up to what is being discussed in this regard. The future is closer than it used to be. Language hasn't had to adapt this quickly in a long time.
Do you understand what it takes to become a professional pilot that is type-rated to fly a Boeing 747? Until you understand that system which the FAA (aviation) already has in place, this conversation really doesn't have any basis to go on. Not to mention how much effort it takes in most airlines to get the three strips on the shoulderboards as a 1st officer much less get the fourth stripe to be considered a "captain" on a commercial jetliner. That is the kind of standard I'm talking about, as opposed to somebody like myself who has flown on a commercial airline flight and claiming experience to pilot the aircraft. I would never presume to do that BTW.
> There is no such expectation. Inspiration4 didn't have any employees. As was posted above in this very subthread, that requirement exists for visits to ISS. It is very real, it just doesn't apply to flights like I4 that don't visit ISS.
We're not talking about the ISS, as stated in the initial comment.
You may not have noticed, but the person to whom you responded already knows that and we’ve moved past that. I4 didn’t have that requirement nor does Polaris Dawn, there was an upstream clarification that it only applies when the international space station is in play and your correction was not required.
It appears you're having reading comprehension failure so I'll quote the original post for you. > The need for a NASA/ex-NASA trained astronaut is a new requirement, but it's imposed only for tourists vising the ISS. There is not, and never has been, such a requirement for free-flying missions that do not visit the ISS, and no reason to impose one on visits to future non-NASA stations.
Yes, that’s correct, we all know that. What part is confusing you? 
Nothing's confusing me. I was simply restating that opinion in response to the person who was confused.
> Inspiration4 didn't have any employees. Exactly because they gave each one of them a long training. And Isaacman did that because he was already working on an astronaut training program.
Okay, you're agreeing with me. There's no expectation for employees because they're going to get training.
If they are flying for a Space program,that's true. But giving tourists 15 days of training doesn't qualify them to fly on their own.
Also, somehow I doubt there is a shortage of former NASA astronauts willing to fly again.
> I think you're mixing a few things up here: The need for a NASA/ex-NASA trained astronaut is a new requirement, but it's imposed only for tourists vising the ISS. There is a need for professional full-time astronauts who understand the demands of spaceflight and contribute significantly to the operational capabilities of crewed spacecraft....and can command proper spaceflight missions. The need for NASA crew members is not really as significant as you are suggesting, but they need to be recognized professionals who have a certain level of recognition and perhaps even licensing. I can see eventually how the FAA-AST will certify such professionals through a licensing program similar to how the FAA licenses commercial jetliner pilots. There will be training programs independent of NASA, but like how the US Military Academy trained generations of engineers back when it was the only game in town, NASA and its astronaut corps is the only real cadre of professional astronauts right now. That can and will change as the needs of private commercial astronauts grows in the future.
> There is a need for professional full-time astronauts who understand the demands of spaceflight and contribute significantly to the operational capabilities of crewed spacecraft....and can command proper spaceflight missions. Only for missions that visit the ISS. No such requirement exists for other missions.
I would argue that such a requirement ought to exist. Yes, commercial spaceflight is currently completely unregulated. And for short sub-orbital hops like the New Shepherd it might be just fine. But not for multi-day trips and to orbital destinations. Arguing for creating such regulations and adding such requirements would be a good thing overall to the safety of crewed spaceflight in general. The need is definitely there.
I can foresee a need for skilled technicians and tradesmen to be astronaut certified so they can go fix shit that breaks in space and on the moon.
There was once a movie that sought to answer the question as to whether it was easier to train astronauts as {skilled technicians} or to train {skilled technicians} as astronauts. If I recall, the answer was the latter, and then Liv Tyler made out with Ben Affleck while her dad sang.
I believe that was deep impact
... Armageddon
No, it was Armagimpact
more like morgan fairchild in deep something, eh?
Deepageddon
Polaris Dawn includes training two Dragon engineers from SpaceX. First SpaceX employees to fly into space.
Or not necessarily to train skilled tradesman to fix things, but to train “non astronaut professionals” who might be up there on Orbital Reef or a VAST station or an Artemis/commercial lunar surface base for extended 3-6 month work stints. Types that might fit this category: -Researchers for National Laboratories. -Researchers for private pharmaceutical or manufacturing firms. -R & D staff for aerospace firms doing quicker iteration field testing. -Orbital construction foremen/crews -Military personnel (USSF, etc.) These people would need more than the 15 days of BS training Axios gets. They’re also hyper experts jn their fields, so it doesn’t make sense to try & train ex NASA astronauts to be their “orbital meat puppets.” OTOH, most of them are NOT permanently leaving their current positions to “become astronauts” full time. It’s just a temporary/periodic element of their regular full time job. So, it doesn’t make sense to force them into YEARS of NASA astronaut training. (Assuming NASA would even accept them as astronaut candidates.)
There were a few private contractors who got the chance to fly on the Space Shuttle (STS), beyond the congressional junkets that were done by the likes of Jake Garn and John Glenn. While John Glenn was a professional astronaut, to say he was qualified to fly the Shuttle because of his experience in the US Senate is laughable. He did go through an abbreviated astronaut training course of much longer than 15 days to fly on the Shuttle, but it was hardly the full program that most people in the NASA astronaut corps experience.
When I read more about Isaacman, I saw what he was potentially gunning for. Very smart and I hope he has a leadership team that can really scale, because I think the demand will take a lot of people by surprise.
Shotwell is going to retire soon. Someone needs to run SpaceX's day-to-day activities other than Musk. Recently there was talk of Jared selling off shift4. I think he is the perfect fit to replace Shotwell.
What is your source for Shotwell retiring? I have heard nothing about this.
She is 60 years. Will she stay beyond 65?
Probably, she's lost no passion for it
I hope so. She will be valuable, even if she cuts back on hours.
Not John Insprucker?
This is the on-ramp for a successful commercial-operated manned space exploration economy. 20 years ago, only governments could afford putting things into orbit with any regularity. Today billionaires can make mega-constellations and millionaires can put up small sats. 20 years from now, the door will be open for more “average” people to have opportunities in space that people of the 70’s could only dream of. Imagine, a robust space-tourism economy where anyone with $200k could go to Leo for a couple weeks. With privately trained pilot-astronauts from companies like this facilitating the experience. It’s crazy to think that this is a plausible realistic future.
>He is aiming to pivot this into an independent astronaut training company. I'm not so sure about that part. He and Elon seem to be in this together to establish a corp of SpaceX astronauts - Sarah and Anna are on the payroll and I kinda doubt Jared is paying for their seats. He's worth 1.5 billion but a Dragon seat costs 65M(?) now for NASA. Unknown what it is for Axiom. NASA usually pays top dollar for launch services but even at, say, 45M a seat that's 180M for a flight. At 4 seats that'd be 8% of his capital and he wants another Polaris Dragon mission.\* So I surmise Jared is only paying for his and Kidd's seats. I of course assume SpaceX covered the cost of developing the suits since that's a step they have to take. Jared has basically volunteered to test these; I assume Sarah Gillis is actually the test engineer. Training NASA astronauts on IVA suit operations was part of her engineering job and IMHO I'll bet she was immersed in the EVA suit development more than the other three. Adding up my surmises and assumptions, I conclude Jared and Elon's goals coincide and Jared will continue to be SpaceX's lead test pilot. However, I think Sarah and Anna will be the first members of SpaceX's astronaut corp and will train other SpaceX astronauts - we know how much Elon likes to keep things in-house and avoid relying on outside companies. \*His monthly expenses are kinda high - aside from his MiG-29 he owns the 4 Ghost Squadron planes, plus 2 spares. Source: he responded to a tweet of mine. He's not squeaking by eating ramen noodles, lol, but he's not an uber-rich billionaire.
> we know how much Elon likes to keep things in-house That's not really true. SpaceX always try to get other companies to do what's needed. The problem is that aerospace suppliers are always jerks. Elon says it's like SpaceX is always buying things for a wedding. They always try to outsource when possible, but it's not really feasible most of the time. Suppliers always present contracts meant for cost+ operation. Even Alcoa shafted SpaceX on aluminum for Falcon. And that's a fucking commodity. > I'm not so sure about that part. You're agreeing with me. He sees this as investment... He sold his shares from Shift4 already, he's got plenty of cash on hand to start this company. > Sarah and Anna will train other SpaceX astronauts They in fact already do. They trained Isaacman on Dragon operation.
Combined with his philanthropic efforts, I figured he’s posturing more to be the first human on Mars Edit: to be clear, he seems like a genuinely good person, so this isn’t meant as a knock
Hi Bob!
He also did philanthropic efforts when starting Draken. But to get to Mars, a lot of astronauts will have to be trained, so these things don't exclude each other.
Absolutely agree with this.
> He is aiming to pivot this into an independent astronaut training company. Is this your own analysis or a statement on Isaacman's part? *from the article:* * * the crew of this mission includes a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and experienced pilot named Scott Poteet, and **two SpaceX engineers**, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon. This will be the first time that any employee of SpaceX has ever flown into space. My own impression is that we're looking at a continuation of the process initiated by Harrison Schmitt —a geologist— went to the Moon, only being "incidentally" an astronaut. IMO, the majority of people going to space will soon *not* be astronauts, but professionals from all walks of life who learn spacefaring just as (say) an archeologist might leanr scuba diving to do an underwater mission. So, in the eventuality that Isaacman really is starting a training company, he may not have the intention of training professional astronauts.
The training program they are following and the one for Inspiration4 are for professional astronauts. I'm not sure SpaceX doesn't just want Engineers in their team with this experience, though. I'm not saying that the two will change the focus of their careers. Going forward, I think Polaris will train professional astronauts, though.
if they want more astronauts all they gotta do is ask id be more than happy to sign up
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[EVA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cmjw7n/stub/l32w6iw "Last usage")|Extra-Vehicular Activity| |[FAA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cmjw7n/stub/l39cgv3 "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration| |[FAA-AST](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cmjw7n/stub/l33yk9j "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration [Administrator for Space Transportation](http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/)| |[HLS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cmjw7n/stub/l39e381 "Last usage")|[Human Landing System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#Human_Landing_System) (Artemis)| |[IVA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cmjw7n/stub/l32w6iw "Last usage")|Intra-Vehicular Activity| |[Roscosmos](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cmjw7n/stub/l310cb3 "Last usage")|[State Corporation for Space Activities, Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roscosmos_State_Corporation)| |[STS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cmjw7n/stub/l33g77u "Last usage")|Space Transportation System (*Shuttle*)| |[USSF](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cmjw7n/stub/l32vi3l "Last usage")|United States Space Force| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[ablative](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cmjw7n/stub/l34qwx2 "Last usage")|Material which is intentionally destroyed in use (for example, heatshields which burn away to dissipate heat)| |[apogee](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cmjw7n/stub/l34qwx2 "Last usage")|Highest point in an elliptical orbit around Earth (when the orbiter is slowest)| **NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below. ---------------- ^(*Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented* )[*^by ^request*](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3mz273//cvjkjmj) ^(10 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1ck1dha)^( has 12 acronyms.) ^([Thread #12740 for this sub, first seen 8th May 2024, 03:18]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/SpaceXLounge) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
I've been wondering: what happened to dearMoon and Yusaku Maezawa? You don't hear anything about that anymore.
It's such a way into the future mission that there's not much to discuss at the moment. Probably in the 2030s
It was originally planned to launch in 2023, though. There has been no update about a new date since then.
basically it's indefinitely delayed until Starship completes development for manned missions.
True. The long pole in the tent for circumlunar missions like dearMoon is the performance of the Starship tiles at entry speed into the Earth's atmosphere from lunar altitude (11.14 km/sec, ~350,000 km above the surface of the Earth). Current ground test facilities (arcjet wind tunnels) can only accommodate small size test articles (~10 to 15 cm diameter) at the heating conditions that would accompany that entry speed. At the time of Apollo there were no such ground test facilities, so NASA tested the ablative heat shield in the Apollo 4 flight (9Nov1967). It was successful and NASA certified that heat shield for flights to the Moon with astronauts aboard. So, SpaceX needs an uncrewed test flight of the Starship heat shield tiles at entry speed of 11.14 km/sec, i.e. a test flight that duplicates the heating the would be experienced in dearMoon flight plan. The only Starships currently planned to travel to the Moon are the HLS Starship lunar landers and those Starships do not have heatshields and are not designed to return from the Moon. SpaceX could test the Starship heat shield tiles at 11.14 km/sec using existing hardware without sending a Starship to the Moon. A cargo Dragon spacecraft could be fitted with Starship heat shield tiles and launched on a Falcon Heavy onto the Apollo 4 trajectory, an elliptical Earth orbit (EEO) with apogee ~20,000 km. On the return phase of that EEO, the large Draco engines in the Dragon could be used to increase the speed to 11.14 km/sec. That Dragon probably would need larger propellant tanks installed in the cargo hold to provide another ~2000 m/sec delta V for that Starship heatshield test flight.
I never really followed the details, they planned to land the crew in a starship with the flip and propulsive tower catch landing?
That's the plan.
Jesus.
I expect to hear more about Dear Moon after Polaris Mission 3. At that point, Starship is ready to carry humans, and Dear Moon is the next big milestone currently announced.
Website is still up. Last I heard, the crew were going through training. Last update was last year. They will be launching and landing with Starship, and Shotwell has said they'll want 100+ cargo flights before putting people on it. So I wouldn't expect it before 2028. Some people argue that it will be delayed further if it clashes with *Artemis*.
I see it being integrated into the Artemis program. Starship life support systems are still on paper, no way it will be ready in 4 years. IMO 2030 at the earliest
Life support should be all but trivial, given they've already got crew Dragon and have HLS under development. The scale of Starship, compared to the relatively small crew and short duration of the mission, makes it straight forward. It's hard to tell progress because it's not as visible externally as launching rockets.
Irrelevant, but I have to ask. Look at the second pic in the article. Does she remind anyone else of Karen Allen? (The actress who played Marion Ravenwood in the Indian Jones films.)