totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[tater]

Propellant is cheap.

The amortized cost per launch of the tanker and booster, combined with propellants is a few million.

All that matters is cost. "Huge" doesn't matter.

[kerbiloid]

3 minutes ago, tater said:

Propellant is cheap.

Aluminium is not?
It's a fuel for solid boosters.

3 minutes ago, tater said:

The amortized cost per launch of the tanker and booster, combined with propellants is a few million.

If Space Shuttle will fly every two weeks, it will save money...

[tater]

If you throw every rocket away, then the mass to destination matters a lot. If you can send 13 tons to GEO, and you only send 6, then there is a real sense of opportunity cost for the whole "system" of putting mass into space. We could have put 13, but we wasted 7 tons of payload. Like F9 sending up ~1400kg koreasat recently. Overkill, right? Would have been better to use (if one was around) a launcher that advertised 1500kg to orbit, right? What a waste.

When the launch vehicle is 100% reusable XX times, then wasted payload mass doesn't mean anything as long as the launch cost is not more than it would be on a perfectly sized expendable.

Just now, kerbiloid said:

Aluminium is not?
It's a fuel for solid boosters.

Doesn't matter when the booster is marked up a million times, then discarded.

Just now, kerbiloid said:

If Space Shuttle will fly every two weeks, it will save money...

Two problems here.

One, Shuttle was not operating as a business. It could never fail. If it was required to make money, it would have stopped flying very quickly, indeed.

Two, shuttle refurb cost a fortune. Every single gap between every tiles was cleaned out, and refilled every flight, for example. By hand. Then checked. The engines were worked over. 

 

Going back to number one, assume they build BFS. If it cannot be reused and reflow for less than they charge, SpaceX ceases to exist, or never drops F9, and tries something else, presumably. 

(actually, I should add that it taking huge labor to turn around was a feature of shuttle---it was a jobs program, after all).

[kerbiloid]

14 minutes ago, tater said:

When the launch vehicle is 100% reusable XX times

...then you spend (1/XX + refurbishment cost) per flight anyway.

Also if a tanker is N times heavier than its payload (i.e. fuel), you have to make ~N launches instead of one.
So, this is the same thing what Space Shuttle was doing: launching 105 t when you need only 20
While the first stage costs more than all other rocket, and probably it's the only LV part to reuse.

14 minutes ago, tater said:

Doesn't matter when the booster is marked up a million times, then discarded.

Booster burns a hundred tonnes of alumina every flight, that's what I mean.
Also, is million =10 or 20?
 

14 minutes ago, tater said:

One, Shuttle was not operating as a business.

Originally it would (initial argument for its creation was super-low cost of 1 kg). Of course, with such prices it wasn't.

14 minutes ago, tater said:

Two, shuttle refurb cost a fortune. Every single gap between every tiles was cleaned out, and refilled every flight, for example. By hand. Then checked. The engines were worked over. 

True. Tiles look a mad and dead-end way.
But shuttle didn't have 31 engine.

14 minutes ago, tater said:

Going back to number one, assume they build BFS. If it cannot be reused and reflow for less than they charge, SpaceX

will just declare one more inspiring project, and everybody will forget BFS like Red Dragon, rocket landing and so on*, waiting for the Jupiter floating colony.

*I have strong feeling about D2. Who cares about it when BFS is the new hype.

Edited October 4, 2017 by kerbiloid

[DVDRW]

After Heavy demo launch, probably next is after a year from that. 

[Nibb31]

15 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

Cancellation of Red Dragon is a real shame. Then again, if BFR actually flies in 2022...

BFR needs ISRU to come back. ISRU needs BFR for iterative development. So unless ISRU works perfectly on its first attempt, the first iterations of BFR to Mars will be left on the surface, and each BFR is going to be a quite expensive piece of machinery.

This is why they should have used Red Dragon to develop and validate ISRU concepts.

Edited October 4, 2017 by Nibb31

[Northstar1989]

8 hours ago, sh1pman said:

Can't you just use liquid carbon monoxide/LOX combustion on Mars? Both components can be  produced from atmospheric CO2, no drilling required. This old paper by NASA states that the specific impulse can be as high as 280 for a high pressure engine (such as Raptor). Not great, but sometimes good is good enough.

Yes, you absolutely can.  However the SpaceX Raptor is not designed for CO/O2 combustion, nor is any other rocket engine that I know of.  Doing this just to avoid the need for ice-drilling would require an entirely new class of engine, which is a lot of work.

The key technology really is orbital propellant transfer, though.  If they get that down, that opens up the door to a lot of alternative mission architectures.  Like slow-boating Liquid H2 to Mars (preferably with some kind of electric thrusters- which could even operate on the H2 itself with the right thruster technology...) and landing a portion of it for Surface ISRU, with a Propulsive Fluid Accumulator collecting CO2 for making CH4 and LOX for the return burn home right there in orbit.  Or slow-boating a mostly full fuel tanker to Mars for refuelung the BFR, if all else should fail...

ISRU is all about mass-leveraging, but if you perfect orbital refueling tech and cheap/rapid reusability of your stages, there are few practical constraints that prevent you from just launching more mass from Earth in the first place... (and many possible mission architecture optimizations that reduce your mass-requirements and have nothing to do with ISRU, like dedicated landers and reusable orbit-to-orbit transfer vehicles, or an Aldrin Cycler mission architecture...)

Edited October 4, 2017 by Northstar1989

[Nibb31]

5 hours ago, Northstar1989 said:

A resupply ship every 6 years for 60 years is NOT "totally self-suffclient from day one", and the numbers I provided were not totally make-up, they were calculated based on the known laws of Compound Interest and the predicted price of a SpaceX ticket to Mars.

Mathematics is a hard science, you CANNOT argue with it, as much as you might like to- only with my (very conservative) assumptions...

Lol. Ask any academic if mathematics aren't something that can be argued about ! Besides, I'm not arguing about the formulas, I'm arguing about the numbers that you feed into them.

Musk claimed that the reusable price of a Falcon 9 launch could go down to $10 million. He also claimed that FH would fly by 2015. Seriously, you can talk about Musk's vision and plans all you want, but when it comes to schedules and numbers, nobody takes him seriously.

[snip]

[NSEP]

In my opinion, i don't care about the BFR going to Mars, its a super heavy lifter and thats all i care about.

What cargo are they going to send to Mars if they do though? Do they already have it planned? Are they going to send things from other companies?

[TheKosmonaut]

Hello again, thread.

 

Talk of colonization is great, but keep the colonization focussed on SpaceX and current colonization happening from now on. Also, if you do have a problem with where a thread is going, the report button works wonders. Refrain from policing each other as it ruffles feathers.

[kerbiloid]

Also can we now treat Mars series as insider's roadmap?

Edited October 4, 2017 by kerbiloid

[tater]

9 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

...then you spend (1/XX + refurbishment cost) per flight anyway.

Also if a tanker is N times heavier than its payload (i.e. fuel), you have to make ~N launches instead of one.
So, this is the same thing what Space Shuttle was doing: launching 105 t when you need only 20
While the first stage costs more than all other rocket, and probably it's the only LV part to reuse.

The mass doesn't matter at all. All that matters is the cost of flights. Payload mass fraction to orbit can only go so high. If you want to do anything large, you either launch many small flights, or fewer large flights.

The empty mass of the BFS is ~85tons, it carries 1,100 t of propellant. It takes about 4-5 tankers to top off the BFS, which means they can offload on the order of 250t. 85t of spacecraft for 250 cargo (propellant) to orbit.

I will "believe" the numbers when we see some flight history, but I am convinced that rapid reusability is a game changer. Note that "rapid" merely refers to the labor of preparing a rocket for launch. If you can turn around a rocket in X hours with a staff of Y people, then we know what the costs are for operations (X*Y man hours), and if the marginal costs of relaunch are less than the cost of throwing a rocket into the ocean, then it's a win.

Quote

Originally it would (initial argument for its creation was super-low cost of 1 kg). Of course, with such prices it wasn't.

True. Tiles look a mad and dead-end way.
But shuttle didn't have 31 engine.

will just declare one more inspiring project, and everybody will forget BFS like Red Dragon, rocket landing and so on*, waiting for the Jupiter floating colony.

*I have strong feeling about D2. Who cares about it when BFS is the new hype.

Shuttle was entirely different, because it was a government project. There was never economics behind shuttle, ever. SpaceX is a private company, they can try new things, and if it works, they profit, if it fails, they lose money, or pivot. F9 will continue to function until BFR is working, and if it is not showing progress, they will kill BFR and pivot.

BO is doing the same math as SX, too.

 

 

ObRealSpaceX event:

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, tater said:

The mass doesn't matter at all. All that matters is the cost of flights.

The mass matters in several respects.
1. Fuel amount → fuel cost.
Of course, one may say that fuel cost is negligible compared to the vehicle cost.
(Which in turn doesn't hesitate anybody comparing "cheap" methane, oxygen, etc and "expensive" hypergolics, kerosene, etc.)

And as we are speaking about a XX-times reusable vehicle, the fuel cost should be compared to the vehicle cost/XX value (i.e. amortization).
Then the more times (XX) the vehicle can fly, the more significant is the fuel cost relative to its own cost.

2. The heavier vehicle - usually the more complicated and expensive. (And definitely is - if compare BFS with usual expendable rockets, regardless to mass).

3. The heavier is the rocket - the more expensive is its ground handling charges, incl. launchpad, VAB and other facilities.

4. Loss of 1:10 10-t rockets is a trouble. Loss of 1:1 100-t rockets is a tragedy, because its payload costs more in both economical and technological aspects.

1 hour ago, tater said:

I will "believe" the numbers when we see some flight history,

+1

1 hour ago, tater said:

but I am convinced that rapid reusability is a game changer

Still "were". Yet none has been really "is".

1 hour ago, tater said:

If you can turn around a rocket in X hours with a staff of Y people, then we know what the costs are for operations (X*Y man hours

And btw Y and X greatly depend on the vehicle size and mass.

1 hour ago, tater said:

There was never economics behind shuttle, ever.

As far I can read, some economics was, though.

30.10.1968. NASA (MSC and MSFC departments) has booked a post-Saturn reusable LV. According to calculations, its reusability would decrease costs 10 times.

1969. Four companies got technical specifications. In 1970 two of them still were in the contest.

09.1969. Two variants of further spacecraft development were proposed: "flight to Mars, lunar orbital station, heavy LEO station" or "LEO station and shuttle".
Any variant cost at least 5 bln USD, both were rejected by the government due to financial reasons.

NASA had to decide: either to finish manned flights, or create a shuttle, but not just as a build-and-support vehicle for an orbital station, but also as a self-financing launch vehicle for common use.

1970. NASA estimated that if the shuttle will fly at least 30 times per year _{(that famous "once per two weeks")}, and if give up other single-use LVs, the shuttle can be self-sustaining.
In its turn, this meant that the shuttle should perform all military launches, too.

NASA had to negotiate with military office, which changed initial requirements:
greater than originally planned, payload;
side maneuver up to 2000 km - so additional lifting force at hypersonic speed (which resulted into double swept (?) wing, enforced heat protection).

1971. NASA won't receive requred 9-10 bln USD and has to cut off something.
03.1972. The draft (MSC-040C) is adopted. The shuttle receives its "classic" shape; turbojets gone; boosters solid rather than liquid; external tank - expendable; payload was decreased for several tonnes. Estimated cost of the system development - 5.15 bln.

07.1972. Developers have received money.

Originally orbiter hull was to be made of titanium, it would be 15% lighter and didn't require such heavy heat protection.
But as an aluminium hull was 80 mln USD cheaper, titanium was rejected, the orbiter was made of aluminium with thick heat tiles.

1988. New, optimized boosters were under development. They should increase payload up to the project 29.5 t value.
1993. Funds are cut, boosters gone.

(From "Мировая пилотируемая космонавтика" "World Manned Cosmonautics (?)" ISBN 5-9900271-2-5)

Also something here.

Edited October 4, 2017 by kerbiloid

[sevenperforce]

 

 

Position two full tankers in high-elliptic Earth orbit (using as many launches as necessary to do this). Tank up your mission vehicle in LEO, then have it boost up to high-elliptic earth orbit to rendezvous with the two waiting tankers.

At perigee, all three vehicles burn to trans-martian injection together. Immediately thereafter, while still near perigee, one of the tankers docks with the mission vehicle, transfers its propellant to the mission vehicle, then decouples and burns retrograde for just long enough to bring its apogee back into Earth's SOI. It can then progressively aerobrake and eventually re-enter and land.

Has this successfully happened at least once?

Which imho means. ITS/BFS is useless here even more.
Putting a huge ship much heavier than its cargo, into high orbit to refuel another ship?..
Maybe just spiral up the lifeless and calm fuel with low thrust or long-lasting nuketug?

No, it hasn't happened once, because the whole BFS architecture revolves around on-orbit propellant transfer. That's precisely the thing being proposed.

[tater]

Regarding BFR compared to the Shuttle in anything but size or other technical details: The Shuttle argument for reuse is a non-starter. Shuttle was a government vehicle, with specs decided literally by committee, that was going to get funded, regardless of what happened. Never a commercial vehicle, never subject to any commercial pressures. Reuse at any cost.

BFR/S is not dissimilar from Shuttle in size (75 tons dry mass, which Musk said they treat as 85t with mass creep, though almost 1200t with propellants loaded). The tanker/cargo variant will be first, and should be a little lighter I would think, and certainly less complex (no human stuff).

When I said rapid reusability is a game changer, I am talking about the fact that it is self-evidently true as a concept. Achieving that goal is clearly the task at hand for SpaceX, and I think it is probably doable, but I'll not hazard a guess as to scheduling. I remain as skeptical as I always am about these things. I think they have a decent plan, and I hope they succeed. I will believe it when I see it. The plan to move F9 booster people to BFR makes total sense, however. They only need to make second stages most of the time. They can make both engines, it's not like they have to destroy F9 tooling to make BFR stuff.

Regarding reuse turn around costs... Operational reuse probably scales to some extent with size. Clearly there are more engines to check, etc. But after initial test flights, the goal is to not look at things like engines that much. Do a slightly better "walk around," and more likely spend the real effort on checking the data gathered from the previous flight. With enough monitoring, they should know how the systems are performing, even where heat loads were not nominal, etc. Red flags there, then send work crews to those specific systems. The vessel will not need people literally going over the entire thing with gloves, it should tell them that this pump is underperforming, then they swap that pump out.

 

[ChrisSpace]

Woah, sorry I'm so late, let me just go over what's been said so far:

 

"No clue. Nothing's changed that would make the Moon make any sense. It'd be great if it did, but it just doesn't work out."

I'm pretty sure the moon does have some profitable... something. The low gravity makes large-scale colonization impractical, but there's probably tons of valuable minerals, plus the moon could be used as a halfway point between LEO and Mars (Dv to Mars is a lot lower from Lunart Orbit IIRC).

 

"Shotwell confirmed that SpaceX is currently attempting to procure nuclear materials in order to conduct research and development of nuclear propulsion for spacecraft."

NTRs with Methane propellant, perhaps? In any case, I doubt a corporation like SpaceX could acquire the required materials.

 

"Aiming for 2022 cargo mission."

This. This is the important bit. When I first heard that SpaceX had drastically changed their plans, at first I was worried that it was the beginning of the end for them, and that eventually they'd become the next NASA. But the two things that changed my mind about that were:

- They haven't pushed back their schedule NASA-style

- Out of the four SpaceX mars vehicle concepts the company has shown over the years, this is the first to break the trend of increasing size. For example:

Falcon XX launch capability: 140 metric tons to LEO

MCT BFR launch capability: 260 metric tons to LEO IIRC

ITS launch capability: 300 metric tons to LEO when reusable

Current BFR launch capability: 150 metric tons to LEO

...and the smaller the vehicles are, the less time, money and resources are needed for development. In other words, the current BFR is probably more likely to be a success than the ITS ever was.

 

"Construction of BFR starts in "about 6-9 months". "

I doubt that'll actually happen so soon, but I really hope it does.

 

"I think a fair number of people would not really want to take the kind of g-loading involved in suborbital flight."

Well it's obviously going to end up as a system for the super-rich only, not everyone.

 

"Volume he said was like A380. In economy config, that can hold over 800 people."

For multi-day trips to the moon or multi-week trips to Mars, I'd put the maximum at 100.

 

"We can finally send those Flat Earthers to space soon?"

We can't even send them to Antarctica right now. But yeah, it would be cool if we could send them into space. And leave them there.

 

"Looks like Elon is bending to practicality again.  And I don't mean that testing on the Moon first is NECESSARY (although it certainly is helpful- and cheaper than testing equipment on Mars), but that some people THINK it is needed.  And sonetimes, perception is all that matters... "

But as you said, it's cheaper than testing equipment on Mars. Also, if something goes horribly wrong, help is only about 3 days away.

 

"Regardless of fuel cost, noise killed Concorde. A suborbital hypersonic projectile heading towards a major city center is not going to be very popular."

If the landing site is several kilometers out to sea this may not be as big of a problem.

 

"Yes, that's how he intends to fund the thing: by shifting all resources towards BFR.

I suspect they will stockpile Merlin engines and second stages and reuse all 1st stages. Don't expect F9 launches to become any cheaper. Any savings through reusability are going into BFR development.

It's a huge gamble IMO. He is literally betting the entire company on reusability and BFR."

For a corporation like SpaceX, this is the kind of thing they have to do if they want to reach Mars.

 

"And as for cost, wasn't it in the 10 billion range for the 12 m version? 

Think it's safe to say it'll be somewhere between 5-10 billion."

Probably. I'd still estimate it at 10 billion.

 

"I was wondering the same. For SpaceX, I guess it's a good test of the mission architecture close to home (propulsive landing and all that), but that's about it. Tourism as well, maybe. 

However, SpaceX could haul cargo to the moon for other moon-interested companies/countries (NASA, JAXA, Russia even) and make some money with that (essentially a lunar delivery service).

Other than a quick moneymaker and testing bed for SpaceX, the moon seems to be a dead end. Their real goal is and always will be Mars, and IMO they're using the moon as a stepping-stone."

So long as it's profitable enough to assist development of the Mars programme, it's worth it.

 

"Well, being a multiplanetary species is more than just "cool". It can save us from some cataclysmic event. Or overpopulation."

Overpopulation? Just to keep the world's population growth still you'd need to shoot hundreds of thousands of people off the planet every day. Although I guess it would be possible if you take the words "off the planet" out of that sentence...

 

"What event would make Earth less habitable than Mars though?"

I can think of a few scenarios, however they all fall into two categories:

A: Things that would kill everyone on Mars too (Alien superintelligence extremination, the Singularity, etc).

B: Things so unlikely I doubt any sapient species in the Local Group has ever had to deal with it (collision with a dwarf planet or relativistic comet from interstellar space, exoplanet encounter changing Earth's orbit, pandemic that gets everyone, etc).

 

"I just got a great idea how a Moon colony can be profitable. Set up a top-security prison there and send world's most dangerous criminals there. Governments would pay to keep them hundreds of thousands of kilometers away from Earth, where there's literally nowhere to run."

The bottom of the ocean. Exact same result.

 

"Regarding BFR Earth-to-Earth concept...

So, how do we differ a BFR from an ICBM, again?"

The same way we differ sounding rockets and other suborbital rocket launches from ICBMs. On a side note, a BFR-based ICBM could easily deliver 5 Tsar Bombas, 136 B83 bombs or 416 W88 warheads at once.

 

"P2P is more useful to the military than it will be for travel. Redefines "rapid response.""

Moving 800 soldiers from anywhere to anywhere else in under an hour? Launching an entire network of orbital kinetic bombardment satelites at once? I imagine the military could think of all kinds of uses for this.

 

"I would expect they DON'T make their 2022 launch date for the first cargo (with humans by 2024).  In fact I don't expect any humans of Mars until 2032."

I'm actually having a bit of difficulty trying to figure out how much time they actually HAVE to establish a basic self-sufficient colony. Estimates for the "due date" are currently varying from the 2040s to 2090s in my calculations.

 

"By contrast, with Musk's plans to perfect Falcon Heavy reusability first, it's probably not by until at least *2052* that the first human colonists would set foot on Mars"

Well, in that case we're probably [REDACTED].

 

"But now it doesn't look like SpaceX has any realistic competitors for the position of cheapest traditional launch service to LEO or GTO"

But they DO have multiple groups, factions and individuals who may try to sabotage them.

 

"If there would be any visits or tourists on Mars then airlocks are going to be guarded by armed men just like we guard borders."

Or you could, y'know, lock them.

 

"I think that people living on a suitable large torus habitat would have far better lives. They'd have an outside to walk around in shirtsleeves, they'd still be able to do "space" stuff, best of both worlds. Mars would be interesting to visit, but not to live."

What benefit would the "outside" inside a habitat have compared to the "outside" inside a dome on Mars?

 

"Ok, so, assuming 4 million a launch, divided up by 100, is $40,000 a person. Minimum (But that's grossly unrealistic)."

Last year Elon put the goal at $200,000 per person IIRC. If that hasn't changed, the cost per launch to Mars would be around $20 million.

 

"How long does it take to develop a rocket with new technologies ? 10-20 years?"

In the space race, less than half a decade for some systems.

 

"It needs to be said that until good studies are done on mammals at 0.38g, including a few generations of offspring, we don't know at all if Mars is someplace for people long term."

If the surface gravity of Mars is too low for large-scale colonization, that would just leave Earth and Venus. And colonizing Venus is just... possible, with floating colonies in the upper atmosphere, but...

 

"No.  Surviving on an island requires timber, metal, and high ground to protect against storms"

I think you underestimate the storm's power.

Edited October 5, 2017 by ChrisSpace

[tater]

 

[tater]

 

[Rakaydos]

If you'll excuse me quoting and reponding to just one part of your post...

9 hours ago, ChrisSpace said:

 

"Shotwell confirmed that SpaceX is currently attempting to procure nuclear materials in order to conduct research and development of nuclear propulsion for spacecraft."

 

NTRs with Methane propellant, perhaps? In any case, I doubt a corporation like SpaceX could acquire the required materials.

The website Atomic Rockets suggests that methane as an NTR fuel is sooty. The heat breaks the methane down into elemental hydrogen (awesome NTR fuel) and elemental carbon. (which cakes the reactor walls)

So at the very best, a methane NTR will require frequent cleanings, very close to/inside the reactor, which will drive up the service costs. this could make "just use more chemical methane rockets" the better choice over the long run.

[Spaceception]

Aww drat.

 

[MatterBeam]

52 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

If you'll excuse me quoting and reponding to just one part of your post...

The website Atomic Rockets suggests that methane as an NTR fuel is sooty. The heat breaks the methane down into elemental hydrogen (awesome NTR fuel) and elemental carbon. (which cakes the reactor walls)

So at the very best, a methane NTR will require frequent cleanings, very close to/inside the reactor, which will drive up the service costs. this could make "just use more chemical methane rockets" the better choice over the long run.

Also, when orbital refuelling is in play and the deltaVs are under 10km/s, the benefits of NTRs are quite limited. They only produce high exhaust velocities using liquid hydrogen. Using denser fuels such as ammonia or methane only increases Isp by about a 100 to 200 seconds over Methalox. You'd be investing massively in a very strictly regulated technology, developing it to modern standards, testing it to higher rigor than manned spaceflight (no-one wants a rocket launch accident spraying nuclear dust over all of Europe... again) and mounting it on the ITS for a drastic thrust reduction just to save on propellant, arguably the cheapest part of a spaceship refuelled in orbit. 

DeltaV to Mars is about 5km/s, down to 4km/s using aerobraking. Mass ratio using 375s Isp methalox (Raptor) is 2.96. An 85 ton rocket will need 167 tons of propellant. A methane NTR might achieve 644s Isp. Mass ratio for 4km/s is 1.88, so that 85 ton rocket will need 75 tons of propellant.

All in all, you'd save about 92 tons of propellant. 

I think this might be the right place:

What do you guys think about an ever smaller ITS/BFR/Recoverable lander able to lifted most of the way into orbit by the existing Falcon 9 booster?

It would allow SpaceX to continue its production of Falcon 9 boosters, but expand its capabilities and lower the $/kg rating through orbital refuelling and easier reusability. 

[CatastrophicFailure]

29 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

Aww drat.

 

You said it. 

I wonder if it's a problem with the Falcon or a result of the Atlas scrub this morning?

Either way, poop.

 

[Spaceception]

4 minutes ago, MatterBeam said:

I think this might be the right place:

What do you guys think about an ever smaller ITS/BFR/Recoverable lander able to lifted most of the way into orbit by the existing Falcon 9 booster?

It would allow SpaceX to continue its production of Falcon 9 boosters, but expand its capabilities and lower the $/kg rating through orbital refuelling and easier reusability. 

I think that would be a great idea, and it'd allow them to test new systems, including using a Raptor in vacuum which could give them a bunch of data for Mars missions as they build the full scaled version.

[tater]

1 minute ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

You said it. 

I wonder if it's a problem with the Falcon or a result of the Atlas scrub this morning?

Either way, poop.

I imagine it has something to do with the hurricane expected to hit FL Sunday.

Edited October 5, 2017 by tater

[Spaceception]

1 minute ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

You said it. 

I wonder if it's a problem with the Falcon or a result of the Atlas scrub this morning?

Either way, poop.

 

I think it has something to do with Nate

Ninja'd by @tater

Edited October 5, 2017 by Spaceception