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4 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Bruh, I was pointing out an example, a very specific reference case to demonstrate my point that you keep avoiding.

No, I have not been avoiding your point, I have addressed it repeatedly.  All you have done is insist that I have missed your point without once addressing the points I have raised.
 

1 hour ago, mikegarrison said:

Ah, but there was another thing I pointed out. That is that no successful airplanes have ever been developed only to fill a niche role like this. You need a main market to pay for the program costs, and then if you are clever you can also build in extra capabilities that niche customers can make use of.


Precisely.  And the same is true of every other form of transport that might be used to carry CT's exemplar.

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11 minutes ago, DerekL1963 said:

No, I have not been avoiding your point, I have addressed it repeatedly.  All you have done is insist that I have missed your point without once addressing the points I have raised.

No, man, you haven’t. You’re still not getting what I’m saying. But whatever. This tangent is becoming toxic so I’m done. Time will tell.

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20 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

I have an idea that I will restate, as I have said it before - many members of the population would probably go on one of these flights just for the thrill of going into space - so why not have a few dedicated space tourism flights with a small amount of training, a smaller crew count, and a week or so in orbit? Price would be higher, but attainable, I'd imagine.

I have thought the same, however to experience space for  more than 30 minutes you need to go to orbit, but you do not care much for who orbit. 
Now most satellites in polar orbit tend to be on the smaller size and its hard to ride share a lot because they have the different orbit requirements. 
So you use the passenger BFR for satelite deployment and can bring passengers to. No this will not work for all satelites, height requirements will be limited over fairings for one. 
Still I guess this will be used both for qualifications of the manned version and later for turist trips. 

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I doubt P2P package delivery via BFR would be a thing. Most of our stuff comes from China and Xi Jinpin is investing billions into a new Silk road system to transport goods from China all over the world.  I doubt China is going to utilize a transport system that undermines their multi dollar project. 

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In other news...

From the video Shotwell showed at TED, it looks like BFR got tank-stretched by around 10-20%, which seems to imply that SpaceX have been able to squeeze more performance than expected out of Raptor. Looks like the thing that happened to F9 is happening all over again with the design of BFR. It also looks like the propellant transfer pipes got A: enlarged and B: moved into the winglets, presumably in order to enable faster propellant transfer.

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As Bill Nye would say....

...consider the following.

There is a global network of transportation modes designed to get passengers and cargo to and from about 20 giant hub airports and an additional ~50 slightly smaller major hub airports. If you need to get something across the world fast, you use your highest-speed transportation modes to get to the nearest hub, then you buy space on an existing flight to the hub nearest your destination. 

The longest regular airline flight in the world is 18 hours.

So, let's say you need to move something across the world fast. You can choose to transit to whichever of the 70 major hubs is closest to you, or let us suppose you can choose to transit to the nearest SpaceX P2P Spaceport site. Let us further assume that the SpaceX flights leave every two hours, all day, every day (which is obviously not true) and take half an hour, and that all international flights take 18 hours (which, again, is not true).

Most people in urban areas are less than two hours from a major airline hub.

This means, roughly, that unless your origin and destination are both less than 8 hours distance from a SpaceX Spaceport, your cargo will get there faster if you use air travel, even assuming the best-case-scenario approach

14 minutes ago, IncongruousGoat said:

In other news...

From the video Shotwell showed at TED, it looks like BFR got tank-stretched by around 10-20%, which seems to imply that SpaceX have been able to squeeze more performance than expected out of Raptor. Looks like the thing that happened to F9 is happening all over again with the design of BFR. It also looks like the propellant transfer pipes got A: enlarged and B: moved into the winglets, presumably in order to enable faster propellant transfer.

Link????

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1 minute ago, sevenperforce said:

Link????

The TED talk is not public yet and won't be until the 16th and you still have to pay for it. It may be released in the coming weeks for free, though. Someone leaked a video from the inside and someone on Reddit did a size comparison and found that the new BFR is in fact 10-20% taller. It should be all over /r/SpaceX and /r/SpaceXLounge.

This also means that the BFR will be the tallest rocket ever now, I wonder if one of the minor reasons behind the stretch was to beat the Saturn V... Another potential upside is that SSTO flights with just the BFS might be easier now, given the proper engine config.

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15 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

The TED talk is not public yet and won't be until the 16th and you still have to pay for it. It may be released in the coming weeks for free, though. Someone leaked a video from the inside and someone on Reddit did a size comparison and found that the new BFR is in fact 10-20% taller. It should be all over /r/SpaceX and /r/SpaceXLounge.

This also means that the BFR will be the tallest rocket ever now, I wonder if one of the minor reasons behind the stretch was to beat the Saturn V... Another potential upside is that SSTO flights with just the BFS might be easier now, given the proper engine config.

Ah, here it is:

 

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I did a quick comparison workup. Includes Block 5 F9/H, Fairing 2.0, and the uprated two-stage New Glenn with BE-3U engines on the upper stage:

New_Space.png

Obviously I could have thrown in the 2016 ITS and the original versions of the NG, not to mention additional SLS blocks, but I'm lazy.

 

Edited by sevenperforce
EDIT: Fixed the uprated NG model.
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Someone on Reddit also made the comment about the video appearing to be vertically stretched by a little, so the stretch might not be as much as is apparent (or that person on Reddit was wrong).

Wait, if they stretched the design, then that tooling doesn't look like enough for the top stage tanks now... Maybe that's only part of it? Or maybe they are planning on splicing multiple sections together?

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12 minutes ago, sh1pman said:

Ok, this changes everything.

Yeah, that thing is a monster.

Granted, the stretch might not be quite that extreme. It was a very rough estimate.

But even so, dang. They must have really uprated the Raptors significantly. With no engine mass growth and only added structural growth (which is linear), we could very easily see a significant drop in the number of refueling flights required for BLEO operation. Elon may be looking toward lunar capability and wanting to simplify lunar operations (e.g., launch a tanker direct to LLO, then launch a crew vehicle direct to LLO, rendezvous, refuel, land, and then return both).

Fineness ratio still appears to be lower than that of the F9 so that isn't a problem. What does bother me is the heightened center of gravity on landings. Tip-over is a bigger risk now.

Edited by sevenperforce
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15 hours ago, tater said:

Maybe an international database of organs for transport might fit as something appropriately time critical.

Interestingly, you can only print some organs in space, because on earth they would collapse before completion, and the bioink can be thinner.

2 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

BFR: Big Falcon Rocket

BFR 2018: Bigger Falcon Rocket

 

5 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

This also means that the BFR will be the tallest rocket ever now, I wonder if one of the minor reasons behind the stretch was to beat the Saturn V... Another potential upside is that SSTO flights with just the BFS might be easier now, given the proper engine config.

 

3 hours ago, sh1pman said:

Ok, this changes everything.

icysmnx0lpsy.jpg

Edited by DAL59
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A Reddit made comparison of the new BFR:

5fC3bhs6te-LxS4m4qoYCKcfY6_KqktsjFZUWVc4Grc.png?w=1017&s=30597de1f379cabab18a7401cfc5657f

A bit less stretched than the earlier estimate, but still taller than the Saturn V. Also, NEW LANDING LEGS!

EDIT: 

Someone noticed that the leaked video had the wrong aspect ratio and the original comparison was probably inaccurate.

Edited by Ultimate Steve
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40 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

So, TESS is a measly 370kg, yet it’s only getting boosted to 60% of the distance to the Mün by the F9. It’ll have to make up the rest with its own thrusters. 

Y tho?

Surely the Falcon 9 can send more than a few hundred kg to a direct lunar flyby, right?

Yes, I have F9 Block 4 being able to send over 4 tonnes to TLI with comfortable margins.

The reason it is only going part of the way to TLI is that it has a very complex set of maneuvers in order to get it into a line-up for a lunar flyby, which must be executed precisely so that it ends up in the desired super-stable orbit. Likely not a MRS; they may even play around with delayed BLEO restarts on the US.

If the F9 boosts TESS too high, its orbits will be too long and it will miss its preferred encounter.

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48 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

So, TESS is a measly 370kg, yet it’s only getting boosted to 60% of the distance to the Mün by the F9. It’ll have to make up the rest with its own thrusters. 

Because F9 upper stage won't last a day. And it's pretty rough...

Edited by YNM
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