{"id":8377,"date":"2024-08-27T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-27T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/?p=8377"},"modified":"2024-08-30T03:16:27","modified_gmt":"2024-08-30T03:16:27","slug":"something-new-polaris-dawn-commercial-test-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/something-new-polaris-dawn-commercial-test-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"Something New: Polaris Dawn Commercial Test Flight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>This isn&#8217;t what I&#8217;ll be talking about this week, but today&#8217;s (August 27, 2024) planned commercial test flight is \u2014 my opinion \u2014 a big deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Something I haven&#8217;t noticed discussed \u2014 apart from a passing reference to getting the Hubble telescope into a higher orbit \u2014 as a reason for learning how to get folks into orbits higher than the ISS seems obvious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our communications, weather, and other satellites occasionally don&#8217;t work right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sending a repair crew up strikes me as an improvement on launching another satellite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But again, that&#8217;s not what I&#8217;ll be talking about this week, so here&#8217;s an excerpt from the news, and a video:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/nation\/2024\/08\/26\/spacex-launch-how-to-watch-polaris-dawn\/74874194007\/\">Polaris Dawn civilian crew prepares to head to orbit on SpaceX craft: How to watch<\/a>&#8220;<br>Eric Lagatta, USA Today (August 26, 2024)<br>&#8220;After arriving last week at NASA&#8217;s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the four-member crew of Polaris Dawn are scheduled to embark on their Earth orbit mission as early as Tuesday.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Polaris Dawn, an ambitious all-civilian spaceflight, is scheduled to liftoff Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;When the mission commences with the launch of a SpaceX Dragon capsule, four private astronauts will rocket into the upper reaches of Earth&#8217;s orbit, where they will conduct the first-ever commercial spacewalk, among other things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The mission has the potential to be a historic one \u2014 and not just because of the many firsts that billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman&#8217;s crew hopes to accomplish. A successful mission would also be a crucial step in laying the groundwork for future deep space exploration as NASA and other space agencies set their sights on destinations like Mars&#8230;.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CzVVSxAXicw?si=uKvwP1QqINpl1acQ\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve talked about this sort of thing before:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/marshmallows-in-space-new-habitat-technology-old-science\/\">Marshmallows in Space! New Habitat Technology, Old Science<\/a>&#8221; (August 3, 2024)<ul><li><a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/marshmallows-in-space-new-habitat-technology-old-science\/#what\">What a Bishop Didn&#8217;t Say, and the Wright Brothers&#8217; Mother<\/a> <br>(&#8216;if God had wanted man to fly, he would have given him wings&#8217; \u2014 \ud83d\ude09 )<\/li><\/ul><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/boeing-starliner-in-context-apollo-shuttles-and-american-history\/\">Boeing Starliner in Context: Apollo, Shuttles, and American History<\/a>&#8221; (May 11, 2024)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/any-landing-you-can-radio-back-from-im-1-odyssey\/\">Any Landing You Can Radio Back From: IM-1 Odyssey<\/a>&#8221; (March 2, 2024)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/commercial-space-services-and-changing-times\/\">Commercial Space Services and Changing Times<\/a>&#8221; (April 29, 2023)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/snow-cruiser-moon-buggies-mars-tractors\/\">Snow Cruiser, Moon Buggies, Mars Tractors<\/a>&#8221; (March 4, 2023)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Background:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Wikipedia\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Commercial_use_of_space\">Commercial use of space<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Polaris_Dawn\">Polaris Dawn<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Polaris_program\">Polaris program<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Private_spaceflight\">Private spaceflight<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A very quick overview of a commercial human spaceflight mission, an excerpt from the news, and an embedded video which may provide live coverage. <a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/something-new-polaris-dawn-commercial-test-flight\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[154],"tags":[173,39,28],"class_list":["post-8377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discursive-detours","tag-economics","tag-space-exploration","tag-technology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7Dwtw-2b7","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8377"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8402,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8377\/revisions\/8402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}