I think the chances of the SpaceX mission around the Moon going ahead on schedule in 2018 is tiny. But on the remote chance it does, I would not fly on that mission, if you paid me a billion dollars. The problem is that they have to rely on many innovations working just right that are hardly tested. Their current Dragon spacecraft is only rated for re-entry from LEO (Low Earth Orbit) and not for the much faster re-entry from a trip around the Moon. That’s why they plan to use the larger Dragon 2 which has its first flight in 2018. If we go by Elon Musk’s suggested timeline, this flight around the Moon would probably be its second crewed flight, and third flight ever.
They need a new rocket to launch it as well. They plan to use the block 5 Falcon 9 “full thrust” to launch the first unmanned Dragon 2 to the ISS as well as their first crewed flight to the ISS. But this version of the Falcon 9, which hasn’t flown yet, is not going to be powerful enough to launch a Dragon 2 around the Moon. So they have to depend on the Falcon Heavy to launch their second crewed mission, which is another rocket that they hope will fly for the first time in late 2017.
So, going by his sketched out timeline, it’s probably also going to be the first flight of a Dragon 2 on a Falcon Heavy, and one of the early Falcon Heavy flights, at most one year after its first launch. And then they send it around the Moon! With no possibility to abort once they leave low Earth orbit.
For SpaceX fans, just to say, I'm quite critical in this article but it has an up beat ending. It's not my aim to discourage SpaceX in their human spaceflight ambitions :). Rather the aim is to encourage them to do it safely. They can do that while at the same time continuing to make a profit with every launch. That's the beauty of their approach.
SpaceX Dragon 2 which will fly for the first time in 2018. This spaceship is a major upgrade from the existing Dragon with a thick enough aeroshell to handle the much higher speed of re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere from the Moon with plenty of margin to spare
The existing Dragon is over-engineered, so its heatshield could withstand a re-entry from the Moon, but it's not rated for that.
Their unmanned rockets have blown up once each year for the last two years (Sept 1, 2016 and June 28, 2015). It was for a different reason reason each time, and they fixed the problems. If one of the early flights of the Falcon Heavy blows up, then that will delay things a lot and surely lead to questions of passenger safety for this mission.
They also load the fuel after the astronauts are on board - an unusual procedure never done before with passengers. This is a concern that was raised by Thomas Stafford, a former NASA astronaut and retired Air Force general, and other veterans of NASA's Gemini, Apollo and space shuttle programs. The rocket can explode while the fuel is being loaded, as happened to one of their rockets last year (the explosion on Sept 1, 2016), where the rocket exploded as a result of a tank buckling as the ful, creating voids where liquid oxygen could pool.
Thomas Stafford, former commander of Apollo 10, who has concerns about SpaceX's policy of loading the fuel after the astronauts.
If the fuel is loaded before the passengers, you have eliminated one major potential risk. However, this is an essential part of their rocket design because they use fuel that has to be kept very cold (to increase its density for higher performance). They can’t keep the fuel this cold for long after it is loaded. This makes it impossible to load the fuel hours in advance before the crew.
SpaceX have a launch escape system that should let passengers escape if the rocket explodes on the launchpad with them on board. It is triggered automatically in the case of an explosion like that - but it is itself one more thing that could go wrong, and so far has never been tested with humans on board, just once with dummies. If the first crewed flight to the ISS blows up, even if the crew survive in the escape capsule, that would surely again lead to questions of passenger safety and delay things, as launch escape systems are meant as a final backup and not expected to be triggered.
But if nothing happens during the unmanned missions, it doesn't show that the rocket is safe. As Richard Feynman wrote about the Challenger disaster:
"The argument that the same risk was flown before without failure is often accepted as an argument for the safety of accepting it again. Because of this, obvious weaknesses are accepted again and again, sometimes without a sufficiently serious attempt to remedy them..."
In this case, loading the fuel after the passengers is potentially a risky approach, and perhaps his remark is therefore relevant to it. Even if they get several launches without incident using this procedure, it doesn't prove that it is now safe. It’s surely something that they need to keep a careful eye on.
They are also depending on a life support system working for a week in space which has only ever been tested for that long on the ground. There have been many problems with the ISS life support in zero g that never showed up in ground testing. And there is no way to abort the mission back to Earth. This is the worst thing about it for me. If they have an Apollo 13 style failure of life support on the way out, then they will have to make do with whatever they have in their spaceship to try to fix it. And Apollo 13 had the lunar module as a “lifeboat” which they won’t have.
The environment control and life support is one of the most complex systems on a spacecraft anyway, and there have been concerns raised about their working methods, see Doug Messier’s review for a perspective on it. Also, the June 28, 2015 failure was due to a fault strut, which failed at 2,000 lbs force though rated to 10,000 lbs force. They have stopped using that strut and added additional quality controls.
So it’s not impossible that a vital part of their life support system fails in some way. If the carbon dioxide scrubbers stop working, for instance, the carbon dioxide build up would kill the crew on those time scales. Apollo 13 were able to use the attached lunar module as a “lifeboat”, but they will have no lifeboat.
There is no problem with life support going wrong in LEO, not minor things like the CO₂ scrubbers not working, as you can just abort back to Earth within a few hours of noticing the problem. But on this mission it could easily be several days before you can return. Such a tragedy would unfold very slowly. And there would be absolutely nothing that anyone on Earth could do except give them advice.
Wayne Hale, former manager of the Space Shuttle Program is quoted by Space.com as saying:
"Even with today's technology, it's still an extraordinarily difficult, extraordinarily dangerous task to undertake, period — I don't care who you are,"
Here is a fictional "future fake news" story to dramatize it, and maybe help it seem more real, as something that actually happen I created it using this online free newspaper generator, with my name as the “author” to make it look like the real thing.
I happen to think that many who are now -saying "good for SpaceX, go for it, rush to the Moon in 2018" may well be saying "Why didn't you go more slowly and do more testing" if they do send humans around the Moon in 2018 and all seven die of carbon dioxide poisoning or whatever. Due to some flaw they'd have noticed and fixed if they'd done a 2 week flight in LEO first.
If they do this, I wouldn’t fly on it if you paid me a billion dollars for the ride. But I expect it will be delayed and delayed, as happens so often with SpaceX.
Also the FAA will need to approve it for safety, and it doesn’t seem very safe, to do this so soon, at least, not as they have outlined it. I don’t think it is “bluffing” but it is hugely optimistic, that they will be able to achieve so many ground breaking innovations so quickly, and that nothing will go wrong with any of them, and that they will all be completed on timetable and finally all be passed by the FAA as safe for flight by the end of 2018. They often claim that they will be able to do things many years before they actually do. For instance they claimed the Falcon Heavy would be ready some years ago (first they said 2011, then late 2013 to 2014) and it is still not ready.
The Trump administration are also planning a somewhat similarly risky mission - pushing back the first humans to use the Space Launch System (SLS) to the maiden flight of their rocket, with a journey around the Moon. See Gerard Black’s Human flight around the Moon: a worthy goal, but using the wrong vehicles. That’s not a fun ride by paying tourists, but an early flight with test pilots on board. These are people doing a job they know is risky and which they have chosen as a career, testing spaceships. However this also is risky, and it could be a personal disaster for the astronauts of course, and a huge set back for NASA’s human spaceflight plans if that first flight is a disaster and they all die.
TIMELINE FOR SAFER HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT
Timing is everything. This is the fast timeline SpaceX suggest:
- Unmanned Dragon 2 with cargo to ISS end of 2017
- First crewed Dragon 2 to ISS mid 2018
- Crewed mission around the Moon end 2018
I think that is far too fast and unsafe, as many commentators have also said. Instead, why not be ambitious and aim for a superb safety record? Something like this:
- Unmanned Dragon 2 with cargo to ISS end of 2017. Freeze the Dragon 2 design and the Falcon 9 full thrust block 5 (or whatever version they are using by then). Only fixes after that, this is the “release” no longer “betas” to use a software analogy.
- Continued launch of Dragon 2 with cargo to ISS through 2018 - 2019. Each of these missions earns SpaceX good dollars.
- First crewed mission to ISS 2019-2020
- Continue with more crewed missions to ISS early 2020s
- First tourist missions to LEO, with two week long stays, in early 2020s. This tests the life support system and the Dragon 2 generally for other issues that may occur in long space flights. They could end the mission, or start it, with a visit to the ISS, some arrangement to take some cargo to the ISS or to return experiments to Earth in exchange for the astronauts there giving the tourists a guided tour of the ISS.
- Early 2020s: Freeze the Falcon Heavy and start doing unmanned flights to the ISS with Falcon Heavy + Dragon 2 - lots of cargo.
- First tourist trip around the Moon, middle 2020s using Dragon 2 + Falcon Heavy. This coincides with the running down of the ISS and the beginning of the ESA village on the Moon which would be built at around that time.
Remember that SpaceX earn good dollars for every one of those missions. There is no empty hardware flying into space. I think this will put them in a much stronger position, lead to safer human flight and it gets further in the end, even if it seems a little slower, to start with. Of course it could easily be that this slower timetable is what would actually happen anyway.
It’s certainly possible to have reasonably safe human spaceflight. The Russian Soyuz flies several times a year, and hasn’t had a fatal accident since Soyuz 11 in 1971. Their launch escape system has only been used once, for mission 45 in 1983, which is also the only time to date that a launch escape vehicle has been used in any mission with crew on board. Everyone survived. They are now on mission 132. That makes it 111 missions in a row so far without a fatality and only minor issues since 1983.s. With a somewhat slower approach, but still progressive and exciting, hopefully SpaceX can achieve a safety record approaching that of the Soyuz.
I say this as someone who is keen on humans returning to the Moon. But - humans safely on the Moon!
See also my answer to What are your opinions on the SpaceX ‘tourist flight around-the-Moon’ in 2018? This also has more details and cites for the various facts and figures here.
Also see my longer blog post on Science20: Why I Wouldn't Fly With SpaceX To The Moon As Soon As 2018 - If They Paid Me A Billion Dollars
Other critical articles about their mission:
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