SpaceX's Polaris Dawn Mission Launches

News Discussion
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Technology entrepreneur and space/aviation enthusiast Jared Isaacman launched Tuesday (September 10) on the SpaceX Polaris Dawn Mission. The mission, powered by a Falcon 9 rocket, is the first of three privately-funded flights. Isaacman is joined by fellow crewmembers Scott “Kidd” Poteet, a close friend and retired USAF pilot, along with SpaceX engineers Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/privately-funded-spacewalk-to-be-the-first-of-its-kind
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Peak altitude was a little over 1,400km, not 700km.

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“The overarching goal of the Polaris Dawn mission is to further SpaceX’s broader ambition of promoting the interplanetary human experience.” Why? Can anyone give one example of a positive ROI on manned space flight since the moon landing? Or any of the so-called experiments performed in space?

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It’s not about ROI to get to Mars, much like it wasn’t in our endeavor to get to the moon or space, in general.

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Well, it is when the nation is $35T in debt, which will crush us all.

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Kent, an example: the spread spectrum technology currently being used in your cell phone to transmit data using almost zero power.

Of course, if you don’t believe we actually went to the moon…

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There’s several problems with your statement:

  1. “Spread Spectrum” is not used in cell phone communications.
  2. If it were, it was invented in the early 1900s (credit also to Hedy Lamarr in 1942, who invented a torpedo guidance system with it)
  3. What is used is OFDM, which was invented in 1967 to sell more telephone services by Bell (and eventually resulted in DSL network connections). It was based on the original work of Alexander Graham Bell in 1870.
  4. Finally, if you think going to space is a good idea because it results in new technology and scientific research, you’re going to love World War II and the Holocaust.

Exploration and scientific advancement are certainly noble goals for humanity, but “the first private space walk” is neither.

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I’m not as worried about Return on Investment here, since (if I understand it correctly) this is a privately-funded mission provided by a privately-funded company. Taxpayers not involved.

Heck, it costs me ~$6,500 a year just to hangar my $8,000 airplane. My wife writes the check every month without quibbling over ROI. Which is good, since I’m not sure how to value whale sightings in Puget Sound, puffy clouds boresighted out the windshield, long grass caught in the tailwheel spring, or little bits of tire rubber scraped off on local runways.

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Corrected. Thanks for the spot.

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We can bring that question down a little closer to earth.

There are hundreds of documentaries and thousands of books regarding Yellowstone National Park. There is nothing in that park that you can’t glean from a book or TV show for free at your public library.

Yet every year, millions of dollars are spent visiting the park.

Can anyone give one example of a positive ROI on manned visits to Yellowstone National Park?

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Negative people have been shown examples of positive ROI repeatedly, yet they are never convinced.

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