18 thoughts on “Apollo And Space Tourism”

  1. Pieces like this bother me. I get the disappointment that one’s dreams have not come to fruition. But Tumlinson (and others) don’t even entertain the notion that those dreams were not realistic and were a product of thinking with one’s heart instead of one’s head. Instead, he uses the Apollo program as a scapegoat. It’s like blaming the lack of SSTs today on the government SST programs of the ’60s.

    That’s just sad.

    1. Well, I don’t think it was that everybody was thinking with their heart so much as reading all the books and PR from the aerospace industry and visionary space thinkers from the 1950’s up to the point where we started to realize the Shuttle would never have a high flight rate, and there was no drive to build a follow-on to the Shuttle.

      We had David Bowie’s “Major Tom”, Elton John’s “Rocketman”, Rush’s “Countdown” about the first flight of the Space Shuttle, and pretty much nothing after that because we were just going around in circles.

      1. Bowie’s Major Tom was Old Space…

        Rush’s Countdown was about the Space Shuttle and the excitement felt getting “back into Space”. But essentially a song about a one-off of two decades.

        EJ’s “Rocketman” is definitely New Space. Although if he’s going to Mars, even using nuclear rockets, it’ll be his job a lot more than 5 days a week. But I got the visualizations in this song. If only we were there! Should I keep a bag packed pre-flight?

        1. Let us not forget the Space Operatic Moody Blues’: “To Our Children’s Children’s Children” and the power of 10 Billion Butterfly sneezes. I was hooked on that album in school, yeah you know, a turntable, on a friend’s Dynaco?

        2. Yeah, I know, just for the record, Bowie’s song is entitled “Space Oddity” a play on words of the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey”.

      1. What belongs to one e belongs to every e! But what belongs to all es is speaking Spanish, because eso si que es! (The only bilingual pun I can remember.)

  4. If it cost 1/2 million dollar for one way seat to Mars, and it costs 1/2 million dollar for one way seat to lunar surface or Venus orbit. What seat would you buy?
    Mars takes 6 months, Venus 5 months, and lunar surface takes 4 days.
    And I guess since LEO is 1/2 way to anywhere, 1/4 million dollar to LEO, one way seat. And if in LEO, 1/4 million dollars to Mars surface, Venus orbit, or Lunar
    surface. Or from LEO, 1/4 million to Venus sky, and 4 million to leave Venus sky to get to Venus orbit,

    And to leave Mars surface, it might cheaper to use CO and LOX to leave Mars surface to get to Mars orbit, and if use liquid Methane and LOX, one could go to Venus orbit, Earth surface or orbit, or Lunar surface.
    And it seems as guess CO and LOX, probably not enough to leave from Venus sky to Venus orbit.

    2. If I’m paying that much money for Moon or Venus, I’d only want to do a fly-by and preserve some chance of getting back for my $.

      1. It seems one could fly by our Moon, and go to Venus and fly by Venus and go to Mars.
        But when such alignment occurs would be quite rare.
        But it seems one could depots and even artificial gravity stations in orbit: Earth, Moon, Venus, and Mars. And if spent time in various orbits, one make it less of rare one time event
        And it seems with this one also shorten the travel time, and this particularly true in regards to Venus orbit, And Venus orbit could highly ellipical which would waste less rocket fuel getting to it and leaving it. And from a highly elliptical Venus orbit, it would take far less delta-v to get to Mars faster, than you travel from Earth to Mars.
        Now the total time of Earth to Venus to Mars is more time but it lower Earth to Mars launch window on average from 2.1 year to 1 year.
        Such a pathway would important if you want more launch windows from Mars to Earth. Or important if have some kind medical emergency and need to get closer to Earth, and ultimately needed to get back to Earth/Moon system. Or in unlikely event crew need quarantine , Venus and/or Moon could the destination until such time as someone is allowed out quarantine.

        1. I purposely excluded Mars, cause if I’m going that far it’s probably to stay awhile…

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