<story><title>SpaceX to Send Privately Crewed Dragon Spacecraft Beyond the Moon Next Year</title><url>http://www.spacex.com/news/2017/02/27/spacex-send-privately-crewed-dragon-spacecraft-beyond-moon-next-year</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hackuser</author><text>&amp;gt; The next person to take a picture of the Earth from moon may not be on a government funded mission.&lt;p&gt;Note that the press release says:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Most importantly, we would like to thank NASA, without whom this would not be possible. NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which provided most of the funding for Dragon 2 development, is a key enabler for this mission.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your tax dollars, if you are American, helped pay for this. Thank you and congratulations - if it works out; if not, was it worth the risk?&lt;p&gt;EDIT: In response to many below, remember that the U.S. military isn&amp;#x27;t the only alternative use of the money. Taxpayers could keep it, or it could go to other programs such as education and health. (Personally, I&amp;#x27;d happily pay more taxes for more space exploration, education, health, and military necessary for security.)</text></item><item><author>ChuckMcM</author><text>Wow. This sends so many thoughts cascading through my head that I&amp;#x27;m dizzy.&lt;p&gt;Some things to consider, China has been working up to getting a space capability to send people to the Moon with the full backing of the government funding, by 2035[1]. They started in 2003. SpaceX was founded in 2002 and they are saying they will fly someone around the moon next year? Dragon has the deltaV to land on the moon (not sure if it has enough to get off again though) and SpaceX certainly has the expertise in building spacecraft that land.&lt;p&gt;The next person to take a picture of the Earth from moon may not be on a government funded mission. That one really blows my mind. For so long it was only countries that could do something like that, now it is nearly within reach of individuals.&lt;p&gt;The UN has treaties about claiming (or not) the moon by a nation state, but there isn&amp;#x27;t anything about a privately funded and established outpost that wants to declare independence. All this time I imagined that some country would establish a base there, and grudgingly offer up some space for non-state use, and now there is this possibility of a private facility that states have to ask permission to visit? That is priceless.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;blogs.wsj.com&amp;#x2F;chinarealtime&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;29&amp;#x2F;man-on-the-moon-china-sets-lunar-mission-date&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;blogs.wsj.com&amp;#x2F;chinarealtime&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;29&amp;#x2F;man-on-the-moo...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ChuckMcM</author><text>As a taxpayer (who was just reminded this past weekend of how much that is :-) I&amp;#x27;m really glad that NASA had enough budget to spend on the Commercial Crew program. Given that the NASA budget of $18.5B[1] is a rounding error on the overall budget $3,540B[2], seriously it&amp;#x27;s a half a percent. And commercial crew was only $1.2B [ibid] of that NASA budget. So less than .05%. Again rounding error.&lt;p&gt;And with that money they are getting &lt;i&gt;two&lt;/i&gt; different spacecraft that can fly missions. So I think it was a great way for NASA to contract out the development of a crew capsule they could use on their missions.&lt;p&gt;That one of the companies that participated has done so in such a way that they can make a commercially feasible &amp;#x27;tourist&amp;#x27; vehicle out of it? That blows my mind.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nasa.gov&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;default&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;NASA_FY_2016_Budget_Estimates.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nasa.gov&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;default&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;NASA_FY_2016_...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cbo.gov&amp;#x2F;topics&amp;#x2F;budget&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cbo.gov&amp;#x2F;topics&amp;#x2F;budget&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>SpaceX to Send Privately Crewed Dragon Spacecraft Beyond the Moon Next Year</title><url>http://www.spacex.com/news/2017/02/27/spacex-send-privately-crewed-dragon-spacecraft-beyond-moon-next-year</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hackuser</author><text>&amp;gt; The next person to take a picture of the Earth from moon may not be on a government funded mission.&lt;p&gt;Note that the press release says:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Most importantly, we would like to thank NASA, without whom this would not be possible. NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which provided most of the funding for Dragon 2 development, is a key enabler for this mission.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your tax dollars, if you are American, helped pay for this. Thank you and congratulations - if it works out; if not, was it worth the risk?&lt;p&gt;EDIT: In response to many below, remember that the U.S. military isn&amp;#x27;t the only alternative use of the money. Taxpayers could keep it, or it could go to other programs such as education and health. (Personally, I&amp;#x27;d happily pay more taxes for more space exploration, education, health, and military necessary for security.)</text></item><item><author>ChuckMcM</author><text>Wow. This sends so many thoughts cascading through my head that I&amp;#x27;m dizzy.&lt;p&gt;Some things to consider, China has been working up to getting a space capability to send people to the Moon with the full backing of the government funding, by 2035[1]. They started in 2003. SpaceX was founded in 2002 and they are saying they will fly someone around the moon next year? Dragon has the deltaV to land on the moon (not sure if it has enough to get off again though) and SpaceX certainly has the expertise in building spacecraft that land.&lt;p&gt;The next person to take a picture of the Earth from moon may not be on a government funded mission. That one really blows my mind. For so long it was only countries that could do something like that, now it is nearly within reach of individuals.&lt;p&gt;The UN has treaties about claiming (or not) the moon by a nation state, but there isn&amp;#x27;t anything about a privately funded and established outpost that wants to declare independence. All this time I imagined that some country would establish a base there, and grudgingly offer up some space for non-state use, and now there is this possibility of a private facility that states have to ask permission to visit? That is priceless.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;blogs.wsj.com&amp;#x2F;chinarealtime&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;29&amp;#x2F;man-on-the-moon-china-sets-lunar-mission-date&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;blogs.wsj.com&amp;#x2F;chinarealtime&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;29&amp;#x2F;man-on-the-moo...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mikeash</author><text>The tax dollars we spent on this would probably have funded about twelve seconds of the Iraq occupation instead, so I&amp;#x27;d say sure, easily worth it.</text></comment>