totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[tater]

37 minutes ago, Kerbal7 said:

Hmmm.

You really believe this is less than 15 years away? Mmmkaay.

 

I think that a crew vehicle (shown) is not that far-fetched in that sort of time frame, honestly.

1. BFR/BFS is an entirely sensible business strategy (cargo version). Full reuse is a game-changer, and BO will be serious competition once NG flies in the next few years. They need to work on next-gen NOW, and they are.

2. The crew variant is much more complex, but I think that a crew version (not 100 people, a much smaller pressure vessel at the nose, possibly equipped with a LES) is not unlikely in that time frame.

Delivering to a lunar facility like the one shown? We could certainly build such a facility in 15 years, if it was a priority, we went from 0 to Moon landing in less time.

 

Another point that applies to both SpaceX, and BO. They have a time limit, and they are working with that in mind.

Both companies act upon the will of their leaders, and both men are around the same age (46 for Musk, 54 for Bezos). Both want to see their vision while they still live. Bezos has effectively unlimited resources, and Musk has stated that his sole reason for accumulating wealth is to push this forward.

I take that at face value.

Both men have the mindset of being agile, and not falling for the sunk cost fallacy. If BFS turns out to be the wrong approach, they'll change it. I think Bezos would do the same with NG, NA, or whatever.

Edited February 17, 2018 by tater

[Ultimate Steve]

2 hours ago, PB666 said:

I agree, but the problem is that if you set easy goals, like going back to the moon 50 years after you have already done it 6 times, and instead of taking 7 years, you take 20 years . . . . what impetus is there for the system of systems to improve.

This describes my life well, actually, with a bit of change. If I give myself three hours to do my homework, I get it done in two, but if I have to have it done in half an hour, it takes 35 minutes.

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, DAL59 said:

As I seem to have to say every 5 pages, the FH was not delayed.  It was replaced by the F9 until reusability had been acheived.

The original FH design was not reusable.  

True.  There is no way it would be delayed 11 years.  

Of course, SLS is 13 years behind shcedule... 

More correctly the old FH based on falcon9 1.0 was canceled and you got one based on newer falcon 9 versions instead. 
FH in is current rolle is primarily an replacement for F9 disposable, secondary its heavy lift. 
One interesting option Musk mentioned was to do barge landing with the side boosters and disposable core, this would only be an 10% payload penalty or over 50 ton, they even got an second badge however this is likely more for increased tempo of F9 launces as they don't have any 50 ton payloads. 

[Ultimate Steve]

4 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

More correctly the old FH based on falcon9 1.0 was canceled and you got one based on newer falcon 9 versions instead. 
FH in is current rolle is primarily an replacement for F9 disposable, secondary its heavy lift. 
One interesting option Musk mentioned was to do barge landing with the side boosters and disposable core, this would only be an 10% payload penalty or over 50 ton, they even got an second badge however this is likely more for increased tempo of F9 launces as they don't have any 50 ton payloads. 

It's not really about the mass of the payload, it's where it's going. We probably won't see a 50t LEO payload for a while, but a 15T payload to TLI might very well happen soon-ish.

[tater]

Payload mass for FH means propellant left in the S2 tanks more than anything else.

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

1 hour ago, NSEP said:

 

Rubber boots are must have on the Moon and Mars full of pools. It's often raining there.

And where is his lunar bike?

 

44 minutes ago, tater said:

Full reuse is a game-changer, and BO will be serious competition once NG flies in the next few years.

How many times did SpaceX reuse _{not just land} the Falcon stages?

Edited February 17, 2018 by kerbiloid

[CatastrophicFailure]

 

Ahah. Perhaps this is the debut of the promised "Fairing 2" then?

[tater]

28 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Rubber boots are must have on the Moon and Mars full of pools. It's often raining there.

And where is his lunar bike?

 

How many times did SpaceX reuse _{not just land} the Falcon stages?

They’ve refurbished around 12 for reflight. I think they’ve flown 6 (maybe 8 counting FH). They have more in the pipes for refurbishment as well.

The game changer is 100% reuse of both stages, hence BFR.

[kerbiloid]

1 minute ago, tater said:

The game changer is 100% reuse of both stages, hence BFR.

That's certainly.
Though

2 minutes ago, tater said:

6 (maybe 8 counting FH).

 

[tater]

The vandy launch is another reuse. They’re reusing/expending old boosters since the block 5 is meant for reuse. They have more old ones laying around than they want.

[PB666]

2 hours ago, tater said:

Both men have the mindset of being agile, and not falling for the sunk cost fallacy. If BFS turns out to be the wrong approach, they'll change it. I think Bezos would do the same with NG, NA, or whatever.

And we should applaud both for doing so, if nothing else Musk has revolutionized the launch business. But also the create the kind of jobs by investing their income into product dev instead of wall street.

 

1 hour ago, tater said:

The vandy launch is another reuse. They’re reusing/expending old boosters since the block 5 is meant for reuse. They have more old ones laying around than they want.

Discount the expendable launches remove the landing struts and get rid of them . . . .

[sh1pman]

1 hour ago, tater said:

They have more old ones laying around than they want.

That’s a good problem to have.

[CatastrophicFailure]

1 hour ago, PB666 said:

Discount the expendable launches remove the landing struts and get rid of them . . . .

This is presumably what they’re doing. The last expendable only had legs for testing purposes. 

[Kerbal7]

7 hours ago, tater said:

I think that a crew vehicle (shown) is not that far-fetched in that sort of time frame, honestly.

 

No way. That thing has got to weigh at least 200 tons loaded. NASA pulls every trick in the book to land just 1 metric ton on Mars right now. So for Elon Musk to be landing giant 200 ton spaceships in 5 years is, it's not happening bro.

But anyways, this might be interesting for you. It's a NASA lecture on entry, decent and landing on Mars and possible near future tonnage. It's not even close to what is shown in Elon's picture.

NASA Talk - Mars Entry, Descent and Landing with Humans

 

  

[tater]

25 minutes ago, Kerbal7 said:

 

No way. That thing has got to weigh at least 200 tons loaded. NASA pulls every trick in the book to land just 1 metric ton on Mars right now. So for Elon Musk to be landing giant 200 ton spaceships in 5 years is, it's not happening bro.

They already propulsively land a far larger thing on Earth from space routinely than NASA has.

Your earlier image was of that vehicle on the Moon, not on Mars, BTW. If it can propulsively land on Earth, it can land on the moon. My response was about the image you posted, a BFS on the Moon. In the 15 year time frame.

I didn't say it would land on Mars with crew.

Quote

But anyways, this might be interesting for you. It's a NASA lecture on entry, decent and landing on Mars and possible near future tonnage. It's not even close to what is shown in Elon's picture.

NASA Talk - Mars Entry, Descent and Landing with Humans

 

 

So what? They now know far more about retropropulsion than they used to---entirely because of SpaceX. That's something NASA got for their money (not invested at all for reuse, but SpaceX has been sharing with them). This is the same NASA that has spent 13 years and 10s of billions of dollars to not launch SLS/Orion yet.

I make no claim about what sort of date range results in SpaceX landing a BFS on Mars, but bigger is not always more difficult, sometimes bigger is easier.

Lockheed Martin proposes a smaller, yet still huge Mars lander, for example. Both designs are somewhat similar in approach (though the LM design lands heavy with enough propellant to leave).

Edited February 18, 2018 by tater

[tater]

[CatastrophicFailure]

11 minutes ago, tater said:

Whoah. 

Looks like they’re serious this time.

I... I want to jump into it from a great height...

[Ultimate Steve]

1 minute ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Whoah. 

Looks like they’re serious this time.

I... I want to jump into it from a great height...

 

[CatastrophicFailure]

8 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

 

Maybe they plan to kickoff space tourism by bolting seats inside the fairing. 

[sevenperforce]

38 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Maybe they plan to kickoff space tourism by bolting seats inside the fairing. 

Give me a spacesuit and I will be on the second flight.

But yes, it looks like Fairing 2 and Big Net are go for launch!

Does anyone have eyes on Fairing 2 yet?

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

2 hours ago, tater said:

 

Spiderman! He exists!

 

11 hours ago, tater said:

They’re reusing/expending old boosters since the block 5 is meant for reuse. They have more old ones laying around than they want.

I don't mean they don't have. I mean practical experience. Just 6 reused and probably no reused twice. That's not looking like a 1000t reusable carrier.

Edited February 18, 2018 by kerbiloid

[tseitsei89]

7 hours ago, Kerbal7 said:

No way. That thing has got to weigh at least 200 tons loaded. NASA pulls every trick in the book to land just 1 metric ton on Mars right now. So for Elon Musk to be landing giant 200 ton spaceships in 5 years is, it's not happening bro.

But anyways, this might be interesting for you. It's a NASA lecture on entry, decent and landing on Mars and possible near future tonnage. It's not even close to what is shown in Elon's picture.

NASA Talk - Mars Entry, Descent and Landing with Humans

 

  

These kind of posts make me even more happy when Mr. Musk lands BFS on Mars during 2030's

"It can't be done" -attitude is the main reason people can't do cool stuff.

Besides comparing spaceX to NASA is kind of stupid since they have already demonstrated that they are MUCH better at building rockets than NASA...

But yeah you are technically correct. It propably won't happen in 5 years but it mos certainly will happen in the next 10-20 years

[Bill Phil]

14 minutes ago, tseitsei89 said:

These kind of posts make me even more happy when Mr. Musk lands BFS on Mars during 2030's

"It can't be done" -attitude is the main reason people can't do cool stuff.

Besides comparing spaceX to NASA is kind of stupid since they have already demonstrated that they are MUCH better at building rockets than NASA...

But yeah you are technically correct. It propably won't happen in 5 years but it mos certainly will happen in the next 10-20 years

NASA doesn't build rockets. They engineer rockets, but they don't build them.

And I would not say that SpaceX is any better, since they would have almost nothing without NASA's assistance. Sure, they can land rockets, but that's not a very unique thing. If NASA was told to do that by congress they would do it. Not necessarily for cheap, but it'd be done.

But comparing the two isn't really useful. SpaceX is a launch service provider. NASA is a government organization that does many things, including buying launches.

If Musk has the money to do it then we can't stop him. The biggest obstacle to landing large payloads on Mars is getting large payloads in orbit of Mars. 

[YNM]

1 hour ago, tseitsei89 said:

"It can't be done" -attitude is the main reason people can't do cool stuff.

So, can I go back in time ? Can I fall from the edge of the Earth ?

[Northstar1989]

The ESA is apparently feeling kind of left behind by all this (read to the bottom of this article)

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/three-years-of-sls-development-could-buy-86-falcon-heavy-launches/

One wonders if this might drive them to invest in the SKYLON spaceplane (the design that would use the SABRE engine).  Or to try something really crazy like magnetic launch-assists (like a slightly toned-down StarTram, where the rocket still fires it's upper-stage engines on the way out of the atmosphere) or even Microwave Thermal Rocketry...

https://www.space.com/38384-could-startram-revolutionize-space-travel.html

http://parkinresearch.com/microwave-thermal-rockets/#TheBottomLine

Of course, they'll probably just sit on their hands and get left in the dust of groundbreakers like SpaceX if my suspicions are correct.  Government space agencies have proven far too unwilling to gamble on risky new launch technologies in recent decades- which is why SpaceX beat them all to the next big breakthrough with reusable launch stages.

------------

But if the ESA *were* willing to take a big risk, like building a magnetic launch-assist system (the smart thing to do would be to build a reduced-length system: a 5-mile track should be able to accelerate payloads to 1/4th the speed of the 81-mile track proposed for StarTram for only 1/16th the construction cost- 2.2 km/s for $1.25 - $2.5  billion...  Still a quite substantial boost on the way to orbit, and still a long enough tube to reach up the side of a mountain for ejection at 18,000 feet...) or investing in Microwave Thermal Rocketry (possible launch costs of under $1000/kg, beating even SpaceX reusables) the potential benefits would be *enormous*- at least assuming SpaceX didn't catch on and find a way to take the same approach faster, better, cheaper...

Edited February 18, 2018 by Northstar1989