<story><title>SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit</title><url>https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-astronauts-launch-from-america-in-historic-test-flight-of-spacex-crew-dragon</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>stickfigure</author><text>&amp;gt; You get access to rare materials that can be immensely valuable.&lt;p&gt;Why would you want to send humans to get it? Space is really inhospitable for humans, but machines seem to like it just fine.&lt;p&gt;Offshore oil and gas mining is rapidly being automated, and if they could, they would eliminate humans from the process altogether. Nobody &lt;i&gt;wants&lt;/i&gt; to go out and live on a frozen windblown metal can full of industrial machinery, in the middle of an ocean, that could sink at any time. That&amp;#x27;s why you have to pay people a lot of money to do it.&lt;p&gt;After you get over the romantic narrative of space, it really doesn&amp;#x27;t sound any more appealing than the oil platform. I mean, sure, I&amp;#x27;m curious. But I wouldn&amp;#x27;t want to live there.</text></item><item><author>babesh</author><text>You just need to look further. You get access to rare materials that can be immensely valuable.&lt;p&gt;Read &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.amazon.com&amp;#x2F;Case-Space-Revolution-Spaceflight-Possibility&amp;#x2F;dp&amp;#x2F;1633885348&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.amazon.com&amp;#x2F;Case-Space-Revolution-Spaceflight-Pos...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Also with that short term outlook you wouldn’t have many things. The Internet was not initially commercial. It was designed to provide communications in the event of a nuclear attack. Yet here we are now and we have reaped immense benefits from that investment.&lt;p&gt;It’s blindingly obvious that spaceflight makes sense to invest in. The issue is that the level of investment is large and the time horizon before a return is long. Sometimes government takes that role.</text></item><item><author>sandworm101</author><text>&amp;gt;&amp;gt; into orbit in a spacecraft that was designed from the ground up to be a commercial venture.&lt;p&gt;If we are talking pure commercial travel, it is a vehicle without a destination.  The ISS is definitely not a commercial project.  There are lots of reasons for the ISS to exist, and they have changed over time, but it has never been a money-making venture.  While the dragons certainly do come in under budget, they are a more efficient path to orbit, the purpose of the mission is not commercial.  Crew Dragon&amp;#x27;s existence is funded by the need to move people to and from the ISS.  Without the ISS, Crew Dragon would exist.  I hold off on the &amp;quot;commercial&amp;quot; designation until the customer funding the mission actually intends profit.&lt;p&gt;What we need is a commercial, money-making, reason to launch people into orbit.  Astronauts fly for science.  They fly for national pride.  They fly to demonstrate engineering excellence.  They don&amp;#x27;t fly to make money. I&amp;#x27;m a big spacelaunch fan but I just don&amp;#x27;t see any commercial reason to launch people into space.  (Space hotels for billionaires might be a niche but that doesn&amp;#x27;t seem sustainable imho.)</text></item><item><author>ChuckMcM</author><text>It is hard to convey how &amp;quot;sustainable&amp;quot; this feels to me. For the first time, humans have gone into orbit in a spacecraft that was designed from the ground up to be a commercial venture.&lt;p&gt;All of the NASA missions prior to this have an ambience of &amp;quot;uneconomical but useful&amp;quot;. Even the shuttle, which was supposed to be this cost effective space truck, turned out to be not even close.&lt;p&gt;And the last thing I&amp;#x27;m feeling is the amazement at how much technology has evolved to get us to this point. I imagined as a child that the Apollo program would lead to a factory of rockets that launched people to orbit, to the Moon, and even to Mars on demand. And seeing what SpaceX has done to get to this point, it is clear to me that was never even close to possible. The Russian program is great in that way. It shows what that path might have looked like. And yes we could have refined the making of F1 engines, the construction of boosters, and just pushed that, but that leads to a steady state that is below what you need to run a program like this with a net positive economic outcome.&lt;p&gt;So very impressed guys, congratulations!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Rebelgecko</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t know much about the intricacies of asteroid mining, but human beings are very capable entities. As great as machines like the Mars rovers are, there&amp;#x27;s no comparison. A human astronaut could probably accomplish as much in a week as a Mars rover can in a year. When I was reading the daily diaries of one of the rover drivers, it was incredible how much effort and thought went into the most trivial activities. A simple sounding task like &amp;quot;go look at that rock 20 meters away and take a picture of it&amp;quot; would be a multi-day effort, whereas it would only take an astronaut a few minutes</text></comment>
<story><title>SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit</title><url>https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-astronauts-launch-from-america-in-historic-test-flight-of-spacex-crew-dragon</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>stickfigure</author><text>&amp;gt; You get access to rare materials that can be immensely valuable.&lt;p&gt;Why would you want to send humans to get it? Space is really inhospitable for humans, but machines seem to like it just fine.&lt;p&gt;Offshore oil and gas mining is rapidly being automated, and if they could, they would eliminate humans from the process altogether. Nobody &lt;i&gt;wants&lt;/i&gt; to go out and live on a frozen windblown metal can full of industrial machinery, in the middle of an ocean, that could sink at any time. That&amp;#x27;s why you have to pay people a lot of money to do it.&lt;p&gt;After you get over the romantic narrative of space, it really doesn&amp;#x27;t sound any more appealing than the oil platform. I mean, sure, I&amp;#x27;m curious. But I wouldn&amp;#x27;t want to live there.</text></item><item><author>babesh</author><text>You just need to look further. You get access to rare materials that can be immensely valuable.&lt;p&gt;Read &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.amazon.com&amp;#x2F;Case-Space-Revolution-Spaceflight-Possibility&amp;#x2F;dp&amp;#x2F;1633885348&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.amazon.com&amp;#x2F;Case-Space-Revolution-Spaceflight-Pos...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Also with that short term outlook you wouldn’t have many things. The Internet was not initially commercial. It was designed to provide communications in the event of a nuclear attack. Yet here we are now and we have reaped immense benefits from that investment.&lt;p&gt;It’s blindingly obvious that spaceflight makes sense to invest in. The issue is that the level of investment is large and the time horizon before a return is long. Sometimes government takes that role.</text></item><item><author>sandworm101</author><text>&amp;gt;&amp;gt; into orbit in a spacecraft that was designed from the ground up to be a commercial venture.&lt;p&gt;If we are talking pure commercial travel, it is a vehicle without a destination.  The ISS is definitely not a commercial project.  There are lots of reasons for the ISS to exist, and they have changed over time, but it has never been a money-making venture.  While the dragons certainly do come in under budget, they are a more efficient path to orbit, the purpose of the mission is not commercial.  Crew Dragon&amp;#x27;s existence is funded by the need to move people to and from the ISS.  Without the ISS, Crew Dragon would exist.  I hold off on the &amp;quot;commercial&amp;quot; designation until the customer funding the mission actually intends profit.&lt;p&gt;What we need is a commercial, money-making, reason to launch people into orbit.  Astronauts fly for science.  They fly for national pride.  They fly to demonstrate engineering excellence.  They don&amp;#x27;t fly to make money. I&amp;#x27;m a big spacelaunch fan but I just don&amp;#x27;t see any commercial reason to launch people into space.  (Space hotels for billionaires might be a niche but that doesn&amp;#x27;t seem sustainable imho.)</text></item><item><author>ChuckMcM</author><text>It is hard to convey how &amp;quot;sustainable&amp;quot; this feels to me. For the first time, humans have gone into orbit in a spacecraft that was designed from the ground up to be a commercial venture.&lt;p&gt;All of the NASA missions prior to this have an ambience of &amp;quot;uneconomical but useful&amp;quot;. Even the shuttle, which was supposed to be this cost effective space truck, turned out to be not even close.&lt;p&gt;And the last thing I&amp;#x27;m feeling is the amazement at how much technology has evolved to get us to this point. I imagined as a child that the Apollo program would lead to a factory of rockets that launched people to orbit, to the Moon, and even to Mars on demand. And seeing what SpaceX has done to get to this point, it is clear to me that was never even close to possible. The Russian program is great in that way. It shows what that path might have looked like. And yes we could have refined the making of F1 engines, the construction of boosters, and just pushed that, but that leads to a steady state that is below what you need to run a program like this with a net positive economic outcome.&lt;p&gt;So very impressed guys, congratulations!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cortesoft</author><text>&amp;gt; but machines seem to like it just fine.&lt;p&gt;I think you are underestimating the challenges they have to overcome to get machines to work in space.</text></comment>