The Apollo stack en route to the moon… and a SpaceX Dragon docked to a Bigelow space hotel (in comments below). I just saw these on a table, and they remind me of two of my dreams.
People sometimes ask me when I plan to fly in space. I have two specific missions in mind, and I don’t have much interest in voyaging out there until they are available:
• spending a few days in a commercial space hotel in low Earth orbit and
• a lunar orbital mission, going much closer to the surface than Apollo X, but not landing.
Why? And why not a suborbital flight?
The two main attractions for me are the views, and the zero-g experience. These experiences are not tightly bundled – in fact, they trade off a bit for the suborbital space flights that will soon be available.
1) Weightlessness
Having done the zero-g flights on a specialized plane, I highly recommend the weightless experience, and those parabolic flights are so much more accessible and affordable today than a suborbital flight. It’s not an extended period of zero-g, but in 30-60 second episodes, you can play in weightlessness for a lot longer per dollar spent. For $5K, you can get 12 of those episodes. For $200K+, you can fly a future Virgin Galactic flight, for a total of 5 or 6 minutes of weightlessness [Update on October 2014: it is now 3.5 to 4 minutes]. So, as far as weightlessness goes, you can get more of it for 40x less cost. To be fair, it is broken up into many pieces, but that gives you time to learn and plan for the next one before it’s all over.
But the comparison worsens still when you compare quality. The available space for movement is much, much greater in the airplane than a suborbital rocket (where the best of them might let you get out of the seat for a bit to bumble about in a small cabin, but you have to get back and buckled in for reentry with plenty of time to spare).
On a zero-g plane, in contrast, you can do “superman” flights over 30 foot stretches. You can build inverted human pyramids or “play ball” tossing someone in the fetal position back and forth. You can do various experiments with spin stabilized bananas or water droplets. We did all that on my first flight (video). On my next flight, I want to bring a light framed hiking backpack with compressed air canisters (like we use for lens cleaning) duct-taped at right angles along the periphery, with remote cable triggers…. Yes, a compressed air jet pack. What could possibly go wrong? =)
On a suborbital rocket ride, I doubt you could bring many props. And zero-g play time trades off with window time. That’s the killer for me. I would want to plant myself at a window, and hope that they would let me bring a DSLR. I suspect I would not have much time to play in zero-g.
So I decouple the weightless experience from the suborbital flight experience, and that brings me to the views.
2) The views
This is the main draw for me. For good photos with various lenses, for planetary coverage, for that zen-like trance that Michael Collins, Rusty Schwieckart and others have described so well, you need some time up there.
So now the cost goes up dramatically, for now, since the cost of an orbital insertion takes 25x as much energy. Since the launch vehicle is even more cramped than some of the suborbital vehicles, you would ideally go somewhere with room for play over an extended stay. In orbit, you see many sunrises and sunsets and night lights, a magical experience for photographers and those with an eye for beauty.
Today, the main option for a destination is the ISS, but you have to learn Russian and train with them for quite a while. Oh, and when the Shuttle stopped servicing the station, Soyuz raised prices to $63M per head. Better to wait a few years when competition from commercial crew providers lower price 10x or, if all goes well, 100x.
Waiting has another advantage: I would rather visit a commercial space hotel, with better toilets and better windows optimized for tourism by design. They may even have better food. =) But trust me on the toilet.
Test units are in orbit already. As launch costs plummet, they may open for business.
Then, I want to go to the moon, again, mainly for the photography. For this trip, there would not be as many creature comforts or space for weightless play, but the views are pretty breathtaking. Earthrise, the dark side of the moon, Earth and moon at various distances.
Since the moon has no atmosphere, it presents a unique orbital opportunity – we could fly a few thousand feet above the surface while staying in lunar orbit. Apollo X dropped to an orbit 47K feet off the surface – like a private jet altitude over Earth.
If the goal is tourism, you could go much lower, and with no landing, it could have a downward facing window optimized for the views. I would want to figure out the tradeoff of orbital altitude and surface speed — skimming a thousand feet over the highest point would be amazing, but might be dizzying. But, since the moon has 1/6 the mass of Earth, the orbital speeds at any given altitude are about 1/6 as fast… so it could be slow and low, that is the tempo… =)
Why not land? The cost and complexity just explodes, as the Russians discovered in the space race. For a new tourist activity, so does the risk. And to what benefit? With the full Apollo stack with EV on the moon, yes, you could cover some distance, but not as much as you can see in orbit. Bouncing around on foot just does not grab me as an essential first person experience. And, moon gravity and Mars gravity is easily simulated on the parabolic planes if that’s the key attraction.
And all that weight and design constraint would likely tradeoff with the window-optimized design. I would rather spend more time in orbit, at various heights, than attempt a landing.
I do wonder about a spacewalk. These EVA activities are a much easier engineering challenge, and might not tradeoff with the earlier goals. Michael Collins marveled at his EVA in Earth orbit:
“This is the best view of the universe that a human has ever had. We are gliding across the world in total silence, with absolute smoothness; a motion of stately grace which makes me feel God-like as I stand erect in my sideways chariot, cruising the night sky.
I am in the cosmic arena, the place to gain a celestial perspective; it remains only to slow down long enough to capture it, even a teacup will do, will last a lifetime below.
(I shared his further description of the magic here; it drives my intuition about windows and transformational experiences.)
On the Apollo lunar missions, the EVAs occurred on the trip back from the moon (to remove film from the scientific bay for example) but not in lunar orbit. Imagine a tethered space walk soaring over the lunar surface…
3,4,5) For some, there are other critical factors, so it’s worth acknowledging that, even if they don’t appeal to me personally. Some are thrill seekers, and like being on the cutting edge of dangerous activities. Some are enthralled with the coolness of the technology – a suborbital rocket flight is a better bar story than a parabolic zero-g plane flight. Symbolism and bragging rights can also be uniquely special for some people, like being the first person from a small nation to voyage in space. I see how that can be exciting back in the home country… and being able to say you’re an astronaut, if only for just a few minutes. =)
When you dream
What do you dream about
Do you dream about music
Or mathematics
Or planets too far for the eye?
Do you dream about Jesus
Or quantum mechanics
Or angels who sing lullabyes?
His fontanelle pulses
With lives that he’s lived
With memories he’ll learn to ignore
And when it is closed
He already knows
He’s forgotten all he knew before
But when sleep sets in
History begins
But the future will win
When you dream
What do you dream about?
— Barenaked Ladies
Leave a Reply