from Hacker News

SpaceX Live Updates: The Inspiration4 Crew Embarks on a 3-Day Mission to Orbit

by erikcw on 9/16/21, 12:28 AM with 25 comments

  • by Gustomaximus on 9/16/21, 2:04 AM

    "Mr. Isaacman has declined to say how much he is paying for this orbital trip, only that it was less than the $200 million he hopes to raise for St. Jude Children’s Hospital with an accompanying fund-raising drive."

    Is this some way to write the trip cost off as charitable deduction? Spend $50m sending self to space as 'advertising' and if you dont raise more via fund raiser its oh well we tried?

    Edit: Thought it fair to add, this may well be a genuine attempt to raise money for a good cause with good intent. I'm a bit jaded from seeing people around offices spend money on expensive holidays and tying it to a cause where they raise fractions of what is spent on the holiday. My feeling is if they cared for the cause they'd skip 'hiking across country X' or whatever and donate the money while having a cheaper holiday elsewhere. So my bias is towards being a bit sceptical when it come to people trying to raise money for charity via expensive personal experiences.

  • by Animats on 9/16/21, 1:25 AM

    At least they're in orbit, not just a suborbital fight.

    Bezos spent 10 minutes in space. Why bother? Al Shepard did that in 1961. NASA did a second launch with Gus Grissom. Those were just tests before they tried orbiting. After that, nobody bothered again until 2004.

  • by 908B64B197 on 9/16/21, 1:22 AM

    Only in America things like this can happen.

    A whole industry bootstrapping itself to make semi-conductors doubling every 18 months, going from exotic, mission critical hardware to commodity; SpaceX is doing the same thing with flight hardware. Contrast that with previous generation engines (the RS-25 comes to mind) with a sticker price of 125 millions... per engine! [0] Meanwhile we're looking at ~60 millions per seat on this flight. Incredible.

    https://spacenews.com/aerojet-rocketdyne-defends-sls-engine-...

  • by rpmisms on 9/16/21, 12:34 AM

    Well, we're all here for a moment in the history books. This is crazy. Space travel is now affordable for the rich, not just the hyper-wealthy.

  • by imglorp on 9/16/21, 1:24 AM

    If nothing else, at least St. Judes will make $200 million. They're a good charity.

    Since we're talking about stupidly rich people, Bezos makes more than that every day.