Jaff

So surely a larger payload ~20-30t that’s too heavy for the top bit to ssto and nowhere near the 150t possible is a waste of a bfr launch? Ie something a Falcon heavy or a mini bfr whatever the next big thing is is preferable (reusable too of course)

So the bfr with 150t capability will be used to launch a 5t payload?

Why would they not accumulate payloads? Why risk multiple launches when 1 will do it?

Am I the only one not particularly looking forward to BFR? that means replacing Falcon where we get awesome launches at least every month (9 or heavy) for bfr that will accumulate payloads and do them all at once only a few times a year. id rather more awesome launches than less awesome launches

I love hot spaceman’s arm is hanging out the window! Brilliant

Bringing a sodding great rocket back down to Earth is kind of difficult not to spot too fairing recovery is easy to be vague about - a sooty rocket back on the pad is fairly (amazingly) obvious

I suppose it is impressive but if it had blown up wouldn’t the bits and pieces just be junk in the sea? Now they have to recover this one?

Can I ask why everyone is so impressed with the booster picture in the sea? surely they’ve just performed everything they normally do just without a barge underneath it?

So when is block 5 going to be a thing where we get 10 reuses from a booster and there’s a rare opportunity of actually expending a booster?

I think that skews my opinion of the shuttle tbh. It’s a glorious piece of engineering and spectacular in flight. those 2 qualities can lead to me overlooking it’s obvious safety flaws

An engineering marvel however imo of course

Thanks for the really informative (if not seemingly heavily biased) reply, it is really interesting.

Ok realistically at some point during design they must have thought “what if one of these not turney offey things doesn’t behave” so why wasn’t there an option to get shot of them with adequate warning of something being not right? Granted if it went 100ft in the air there wouldn’t be much that could be done but challenger was a Fair way down range before things went wrong. I’d imagine light enough to blow the boosters away and maintain some sort of flight back to the floor

Satisfy a question if you would guys, challenger - if they knew the booster was goosed 20 seconds before it went bang, why not separate them and abort the mission?

Think my point may have been missed but I understand the issues.

None of them are linked, fuel wise - fill them all separately simultaneously or sequentially it shouldn’t make a difference

Indeed we have found that out! rocket science is simple right?

I’m not saying they should rush, although excitement is through the roof for me atm, just commenting on the fact that heavy should be just as easy as 9 only take 3 times longer based on the “simplicity” or this rocket (I.e just strap 3 9’s together)

No doubt but they’ve learnt from that and have had many successes since. And like I said orevioudlybthe idea is these are just 3 F9’s

Whilst I understand prop loading is a big milestone, surely the whole point of the Heavy is it’s easy because you just get what works for the F9 and add 2 more exactly the same. Should almost be mundane by now surely?

I kind of see what you’re saying. i didn’t think of the expense of the logistics of recovering the booster. It’s costly to recover using drone ship, crane, truck etc. Just to get it back and strip it down because the block 3 isn’t meant to be reused more than once. Still doesnt answer why they had fins on it unless they wanted to bin it in a specific place. In which case it makes sense that they used a dirty old interstage with crappy alu fins. id have imagined the engines would be worth recovering no matter what though

Seems to me like they couldn’t be arsed to do anything to the interstage and just chucked it on a reused booster that was never going to be launched more than twice

Seems they’re just being wasteful

Seems backwards to waste millions because they can’t store a booster. Renting a a warehouse would be cheaper surely? SpaceX - literal translation = keeping you guessing all the fricken time

Love the timeline at the bottom!