/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.9538805]

Is the SpaceX BFR actually going to happen or is it a meme?

[Anonymous No.9538809]

Thunderf00t BUSTED that meme rocket that will never every launch, just like how the FH won't either
CHECKMATE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4KR4-TN-Yo&t=324s

[Anonymous No.9538816]

>>9538805
Given that they cancelled the lunar flight on the FH in favor of the BFR, I'd imagine they're pretty confident. The second stage is supposed to start doing some hop tests in about a year or so IIRC, so while it probably won't happen on the timeframe Elon gave I'm leaning towards happening.

[Anonymous No.9538833]

>>9538809
dont forget the hyperloop

elon musk is like the even more retarded version of steve jobs. he doesn't know much of anything, he's known for his ideas, they're all mediocre, and he gets paid a fuckton and praised for being the face of it. worth every tax dollar (yes he loves nothing more than gov funding)

[Anonymous No.9538851]

>>9538809
>Thunderf00t

I watched a few of his videos. He is a high functioning autist, but not in the good way.

[Anonymous No.9538855]

>>9538851
really proved him wrong there buddy

you're typing he's a high functioning autist on 4chan

the irony

[Anonymous No.9538861]

>>9538855
OP here, this is the first time I've ever heard of the guy and I feel prepared to disregard everything he ever says about anything

[Anonymous No.9538867]

>>9538855
Have you actually watched any of his videos? I hope he never breeds.

[Anonymous No.9538879]

>>9538861
what's the problem? are you pretending you aren't uglier than him? you realize the "people also search for" are people he routinely shits on? ive only watched his videos shitting on elon musk, and he's been correct in all of them


>>9538867
t. christian soyboy

and only the elon ones

[Anonymous No.9538881]

>150 ton payload thousand times reusable vertical landing upper stage lander for both vacuum and atmospheric bodies with built in long term life support for dozens if not hundreds of people
>10$/kg to LEO

Is there anyone who takes this seriously?

[Anonymous No.9538893]

>>9538867
That doesn't even make sense. I think you've drank too much /pol/.

[Anonymous No.9538912]

>>9538805
The BFR is "just" engineering.
Probably work.
Indefinitely reusable? Maybe. Claims likely somewhat exaggerated.
Mars colony? Doubtful. Big difference between throwing people into orbit (even assuming NO bad-for-PR failures and deaths) and keeping them alive between here and Mars.

[Anonymous No.9538922]

>>9538805
>BFR
not Science or Math

[Anonymous No.9539015]

>>9538809
>caring about anything thunderf00t says
He's an asspained popsci crank.

[Anonymous No.9539162]

>>9539015
Holy fuck, this guy is retarded. How can anyone take such an idiot seriously?

[Anonymous No.9539186]

>>9539015
Did he suicided when FH launched successfully?

[Anonymous No.9539206]

>>9538805
it's definitely going to happen, SpaceX is currently diverting immense amounts of resources towards the project
this combined with the fact that the overall plan of SpaceX relies entirely on the BFR becoming a thing suggests that they're going to go balls to the wall to get it done

[Anonymous No.9539209]

>>9539162
people who are like him and dedicate their entire existence to being ass ravaged at everyone that achieves more than they do

[Anonymous No.9539255]

considering they just posted a fuckton of job openings, I'd say yes.

http://www.spacex.com/careers/list

[Anonymous No.9539295]

>>9539255
>you can become a SpaceX barista

[Anonymous No.9539298]

>>9539295
>or a deburring expert

[Anonymous No.9539315]

>>9538805
They have a good shot. They have already shown they can build a rocket with a fuckton of engines. This was seen as the main obstacle, and they done it with the FH. Now simply do the same with Raptor instead of Merlin engines, and basically you have the BFR.

[Anonymous No.9539326]

>>9539015
>Thunderf00t
>An asspained popsci crank

The same guy the debunked the BFR, HyperLoop and Solar Roadways is a popsci crank?

[Anonymous No.9539334]

9539326
>was proven wrong on the first two multiple times
>the last was fruit hanging so fucking low even a blind, deaf retard could have debunked it
go home thunderf00t

[Anonymous No.9539424]

>>9539326
>disproved BFR
he literally said BFR won't work because BFR can't work
he never provided evidence to prove his case, just it's impossible to make a large rocket
>A man with a degree in fucking nuclear chemistry thinks he understands rocket engineering
HyperLoop is a little beyond crazy, but an interesting concept, and Solar Roadways isn't popsci, it's a scam

[Miniature Spacecraft No.9539430]

>>9538805
SpaceX is a scam. Don't buy it.

[Anonymous No.9539437]

>>9539334
>he thinks the hyperloop is happening
jesus christ

>>9539424
that wasn't what he said at all though. i don't even like thunderfoot but the video was linked in this thread. he never said it was impossible, i don't even think he said the hyperloop was impossible, the point is that it's an incredibly dumb and pointless idea

he needs to stick to what he's good at aka business while he lets the big boys make his rockets for him

[Anonymous No.9539476]

>>9539326
>The same guy the debunked the BFR, HyperLoop and Solar Roadways is a popsci crank?
Yes. That's exactly what he is on youtube.

>Solar Roadways
He gets confused between the ridiculous Solar Roadways company in particular, and the concept of putting solar collectors on roads in general. So on the one hand, he's putting a huge effort into "debunking" obvious inept engineering (amateurs cobbling together roads made of hollow glass-topped boxes), and on the other hand, he's making terrible arguments that a fairly simple and achievable concept with obvious advantages will be unfeasible forever, no matter how technology advances (basically, he thinks that the main cost of solar power will always be the cost of the panels, despite nature covering surfaces with solar collectors from nothing but the materials on hand basically everywhere, with no input of human labor).

So even when he picks the easiest possible target, he shows himself to be unreasonable, lacking imagination, and arrogant. He's a popsci poser who overstates his case to impress midwits.

[Anonymous No.9539481]

>>9538881
Yes, just look through any thread here about the SLS or about space in general. Even better, go on the Kerbal Space Program forums and look through the SpaceX thread. Retards are everywhere.

[Anonymous No.9539491]

I said to myself 12 years ago, they would never get the rockets to land without a parachute. They did.

BFR is happening.

[Anonymous No.9539498]

>>9539491
Then you're retarded.

[Anonymous No.9539509]

>>9539498
>suborbital

[Anonymous No.9539511]

>>9539491
>I said to myself 12 years ago, they would never get the rockets to land without a parachute. They did. BFR is happening.

They also said we'd have the 2000 Olympics on the Moon.

[Anonymous No.9539514]

>>9539511
>They also said we'd have the 2000 Olympics on the Moon.
Did they though.

[Anonymous No.9539519]

>>9539509
lol this thing never even left the stratosphere

[Anonymous No.9539520]

>>9539509
>Scale model doesn't reach orbit.
wow

[Anonymous No.9539651]

>>9539491
and they said we'd be one mars by the 1980s when the last few moon landings were still being conducted

[Anonymous No.9539695]

>>9539651

That was before they cut 80% of their budget.

[Anonymous No.9539704]

it's definitely going to fly...eventually..
spacex always gets "there" they just delay things a lot before arriving
musk was saying something about end of 2019? yeah right, 2021 at the earliest

however they WILL get there and it's going to make things really interesting once it's available, in terms of opening up space infrastructure

[Anonymous No.9539709]

>>9539695
actually it was long after

between the peaked in the 60s then mid60s and 70s it went slowly down and stayed the same, went back up in the 90s and took a nose dive in the mid2000s

[Anonymous No.9539748]

>>9538881
actually NASA is working on Orion which will take people to Mars in in 2024

[Anonymous No.9539765]

wow a bunch of lesser flat Earth fucks on here can sit around dogging Elon musk that haven't achieved anything but running there mouths what a fucking joke you fucks weigh down the human race 4chan won't go far with you fucks>>9538805

[Anonymous No.9539790]

>>9539695
The lowest year of funding for NASA after the Apollo Program was 55% of the average NASA funding during the Apollo Program. For the last decade, they've been at about 70%. The average has been around 60-65%.

During the Apollo Program, they were also running Project Mercury, Project Gemini, and various unmanned probe programs. They developed from relying on the original Atlas rocket (that didn't even have a real upper stage, and could put less than 1.4 tonnes in LEO). They invented practically every useful method that they've used since the end of that program.

The problem since then has definitely not been that NASA has been underfunded. The problem is that NASA has been as big scam for stealing taxpayer money, where things cost ten or even hundreds of times more than they should.

[Anonymous No.9539811]

that's why they are building Orion now and planning on a trip to Mars around 2024>>9539790

[Anonymous No.9539818]

>>9539811
Orion has no useful role in a Mars mission, and NASA has no plan at all to go to Mars, ever.

It's SpaceX that's talking about putting a man on Mars around 2024.

[Anonymous No.9539819]

>>9539748
>>9539811
If you used an SLS and an Orion to send a crew to Mars (and boy, imagine spending half a year minimum in this tin can with two other people)

How is it going to get back to earth?

[Anonymous No.9539865]

>>9539811
Orion is a joke of a capsule that is only run as a too big to kill jobs program
It serves no purpose, it'll never actually be used for anything, they are inventing fantasies about putting a manned orion in lunar orbit a decade from now just to keep justifying the 2 billion a year that is spent on it

[Anonymous No.9539897]

>>9538805
It's a meme and anyone who thinks it will happen in 2 years is fucking retarded.

>>9538809
kys

[Anonymous No.9539904]

>>9539509
falcon 9 is suborbital

[Anonymous No.9539910]

9539897
>he's still here
>he's still making up bullshit that was never said and spouting reddit memes to use as an argument

[Anonymous No.9539919]

>>9539910
>>>/tv/95066594

[Anonymous No.9539939]

>>9539904
the 1st stage can get to orbit if there wasn't a payload on top. Either way, stop being retarded. There is a clear difference between a F9 and things like new Shepard

[Anonymous No.9539946]

>>9539939
>There is a clear difference between a F9 and things like new Shepard
Yeah..
One of them gets refurbished for 6 months and then thrown into the ocean
The other one gets reused 5 times in a row and then put on display after a test it wasn't supposed to survive.

[Anonymous No.9539970]

ITS was definitely a meme, 550 tons to LEO, people actually defended this, wow. BFR seems doable though, after all Saturn V was 140 tons to LEO.

[Anonymous No.9540048]

>>9539904
fucking wrong

[Anonymous No.9540060]

>>9540048

[Anonymous No.9540065]

>>9540060
>hurr durr the first stage is the whole rocket
Never mind the second stage regularly reaching orbit and deploying sattelites

[Anonymous No.9540076]

>>9540065
Does the second stage land? No? Cool argument.

[Anonymous No.9540078]

>>9538805
>Is the SpaceX BFR actually going to happen or is it a meme?
a meme going to happen

[Anonymous No.9540087]

>>9540076
goalposts: moved

[Anonymous No.9540090]

I can see the first stage of BFR being reasonable, as it's essentially just a scaled up version of something they've already done. Sure there may be difficulties but that should be achievable, probably not in the time frame Elon claims, but eventually.

The upper stage giant space shuttle without wings that can reenter from orbital speeds and land vertically seems like absolute fantasy though, and I literally won't believe that until I see it.

[Anonymous No.9540108]

>>9540087
We are talking about things that land. Only the first stage of falcon 9 lands, and it's suborbital.

Stop being a piece of dumb reddit shit with slippery indecisive arguments and learn to admit when you're wrong.

[Anonymous No.9540114]

>>9540108
And only the first stage of New Shepard lands, and it's suborbital. And can't even launch a second stage to orbit.

[Anonymous No.9540124]

>>9540114
>And can't even launch a second stage to orbit.
It could if the stage 2 was small enough.

The Japs launched a bottle rocket into orbit just a few weeks ago. It's literally nothing nowadays.

[Anonymous No.9540127]

>>9540124
It could but it doesn't. Falcon 9 can and it does.

[Anonymous No.9540134]

>>9539748

No. SLS and Orion are only two pieces of a (SLS and Orion based) Mars architecture that requires many more pieces, the other pieces of which aren't being worked on and have been put off to some hypothetical theoretical time in the future and are expensive themselves.

SLS and Orion will just be taking trips around the moon in that timeframe.

[Anonymous No.9540138]

>>9540127
>It could but it doesn't.
So you admit that they can go orbital, but aren't doing it yet out of choice. So, why is your only argument "it's not orbital!" when it really doesn't matter?

I'm still waiting for the second reuse of any Falcon 9 booster.

[Anonymous No.9540144]

>>9540138
No, it might go orbital if they developed the correct second stage. Which they aren't doing.
To quote you, they >aren't doing it
So it's not orbital. And BO aren't planning on doing it either.

[Anonymous No.9540148]

[Anonymous No.9540155]

>>9540138
america literally fucking landed on the moon

[Anonymous No.9540156]

>>9540155
Did you reply to the wrong post or something?

[Anonymous No.9540157]

>>9540156
america literally fucking landed on the moon

[Anonymous No.9540161]

>ULA shill is assblasted
what's new?

[Anonymous No.9540162]

>>9540161
muh Vulcan
muh ACES

[Anonymous No.9540165]

>>9540162
don't forget,
>muh SMART recovery

it's the dumbest thing. "Oh, we can't throttle down our engines far enough, so let's spend 2x the money making a convoluted, retarded recovery system"

[Anonymous No.9540177]

>>9540138
Look, what New Shepard does isn't remotely comparable to what the Falcon 9 first stage does.

New Shepard carries a capsule that weighs a few tonnes, straight up, just barely reaching an altitude that is technically considered space (but is well below suitable altitude for a satellite), then it falls straight back down

The F9 first stage carries 120+ tonnes, not just into space, but into space with about 2 km/s lateral speed. It doesn't just come straight back down, it boosts back many kilometers to land, and then coasts to an altitude of hundreds of kilometers before it comes back in a high supersonic, bordering on hypersonic, re-entry.

In theory, Blue Origin could put an upper stage on top of New Shepard that would go to orbit (though merely getting to space isn't much better than being air launched in the stratosphere, and nobody seems to consider air launch to make multiple stages unnecessary), but they've never demonstrated the ability to build a vehicle that meets the stringent mass ratio requirements to get to orbit, which is far harder that just being able to kiss the edge of space. By the same token, the F9 first stage could simply fly to orbit on its own, without an upper stage, if it were launched with a sufficiently small payload. New Shepard comes nowhere near that.

In fact, even when unloaded New Shepard couldn't fly through the trajectory F9 flies with 120+ tonnes of upper stage and payload on it during the ascent phase. They're not in the same class at all. New Shepard's not a significant first at anything, it's no better than SpaceShipOne.

[Anonymous No.9540180]

>>9540177
Falcon 9 has larger fuel tanks. That doesn't make it impressive.

[Anonymous No.9540182]

>>9540177
good reply, but you're just talking to a Bezos/Tory troll. No sane individual puts NS in the same class as a F9.

[Anonymous No.9540188]

>>9540180
Blue Origin has never sent a payload to orbit. That doesn't make it impressive.

[Anonymous No.9540191]

>>9540188
see >>9540138

[Anonymous No.9540195]

>I'm still waiting for a falcon 9 to launch
>I'm still waiting for a falcon 9 to land
>I'm still waiting for a falcon 9 to be re-used
>I'm still waiting for falcon heavy to fly
I have personally seen all of these statements made over the years.
I suppose that I'll add
>I'm still waiting for a falcon 9 to be re-used twice
to the list. Wew, Bezos sure is salty today

[Anonymous No.9540197]

>>9540191
They've still never done it lmao

[Anonymous No.9540203]

>we're going to launch ballistic missile "airliners" at the world's largest cities and don't think there's anything implicitly wrong with the idea :)
Holy shit lmao...

[Anonymous No.9540204]

I can't wait for the day BFR launches, is a massive success and I can come smugpost here.

[Anonymous No.9540206]

>>9540203
Yeah that part is a stupid meme, but mostly because launch conditions around the world are simply not consistent enough for any kind of regular flights.

[Anonymous No.9540207]

>>9540204
Same. I bet the same naysayers were shit talking FH before 3 weeks ago. There's so many SpaceX haters on /sci/ that are jealous as fuck, and Musk keeps destroying them every new launch.

[Anonymous No.9540208]

>>9540204
I look at it this way

>BFR built and launches successfully
>Fukken sweet look at that thing nigger

>BFR fails catastrophically and kills hundreds of people
>Haha Elon is a fag and his rocket is gay

[Anonymous No.9540209]

>>9540207
Nobody cared because it still took 8 years for them to get FH working, and it's going to be the same for BFR so nobody will care then either.

[Anonymous No.9540210]

>>9540206
>launch conditions around the world are simply not consistent enough
Rockets are naturally less sensitive to weather conditions than winged aircraft.

They only wait for perfect conditions when they've got low flight rates and the flights aren't urgent. Each brand new shiny rocket has enough chance of going wrong on its first flight without adding bad weather.

[Anonymous No.9540211]

>>9538881

Elon's gonna need the BFR if he wants to compete with the New Glenn.

[Anonymous No.9540212]

>>9540211
Bezos's gonna need the New Glenn if he wants to compete with the BFR.

[Anonymous No.9540224]

>>9540211
>>9540212
NG is a FH / F9 competitor. New Armstrong will be the BFR competitor.

[Anonymous No.9540229]

>>9540211
No, New Glenn won't really be competitive with Falcon Heavy. This is not leapfrog, this is catchup.

Blue Origin engineers are much more conservative than SpaceX ones. They're doing recovery by adding a lot of cost and dry mass. They're trying to make up for it with higher energy propellants. They need a much bigger upper stage because the booster can't go to the same speed, even though they're always doing downrange landing, and because they've got a big, heavy upper stage, they need a costly hydrogen-fuelled third stage to take a decent payload beyond LEO.

Watch, the expendable upper stage of New Glenn will cost as much as an expendable center core of Falcon Heavy, and the third stage will cost as much again. It'll be inferior performance at higher cost. And BFR will end up flying before New Glenn does.

[Anonymous No.9540249]

>>9540229
pretty hard to play catchup when it's hard to be at an advantage when you don't just copy F9.

..."Rockets are, in general, over 90% propellant by mass. When you launch, you need enough engine thrust to counter all that weight and impart some acceleration on your vehicle. However, if you try to land your rocket after boosting the payload, you have expended most of your mass, and your launch thrust is wildly excessive - if applied fully, you will produce tens of g's of acceleration, destroying your precious vehicle. You need to somehow reduce it to a small fraction of design maximum - but rocket engines are, in general, really bad at deep throttling, as it can cause combustion instability, followed by flow separation, followed by a destroyed engine.
This is where SpaceX got lucky - initially, their plan was to launch small satellites on the Falcon 1, followed by parachute recovery of the first stage. To that end, they developed the Merlin 1 engine for the first stage, and Kestrel engine for the second stage. This plan failed, and nearly bankrupted the company. They were saved by NASA awarding them a contract to develop the Falcon 9 and Dragon. With only Merlin and Kestrel in their toolbox, the latter being far too small for the class of rockets they got contracted to work on, and limited funds, they opted to make the entire rocket work using their relatively small Merlin 1C engine, which, at that point, was rated for 42 tons of thrust at sea level and 48 tons of thrust in vacuum. For comparison, the RD-180 engine used on Atlas V is rated for 383 tons of sea level thrust. This meant using lots of small engines together - nine of them, in fact. At this point, they were still working on parachute recovery of the first stage. The decision to use nine engines on the first stage was controversial - many believed that this can produce uncontrolled vibrations that will destroy the rocket - but they didn't really have much of a choice."

[Anonymous No.9540252]

>>9540249
..."However, when their initial plan to use parachutes for first stage recovery turned out to be a failure - the stage simply failed to survive re-entry - they figured out that they could use the center engine alone to produce sufficiently low thrust to make a controlled landing of a nearly-empty stage.
The second point where they got lucky is with the decision to use Merlin on the second stage. While Merlin is small for a first stage engine, it's hugely overpowered for a second stage. For comparison, the RL-10 engine used on Atlas V's Centaur produces just 11 tons of vacuum thrust, and HM7B on Ariane 5 produces only 6 tons. They are far better engines for upper stage use - Merlin's specific impulse is pathetic in comparison - but in the context of Falcon 9, using a Merlin to power the second stage resulted in staging very early in the flight, with a relatively small first stage and a huge, overpowered second stage. Whereas a Falcon 9's first stage burns for less than three minutes and stages at slightly over 2km/s, and then the second stage takes over, an Ariane 5's first stage burns for nine minutes and burns out at 7km/s of velocity. On its ballistic path, launching out of Kourou, it almost reaches Africa - you can appreciate how much harder it would be to decelerate and land it, even if its engine was capable of such a feat.
SpaceX engineers certainly wrung every last bit of performance out of their luck, but it's not like ULA or CNES engineers aren't landing their rockets simply because they don't want to."

[Anonymous No.9540253]

>>9540249
>>9540252
then again, there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. Desch of iridium has said that "“Our technical teams really dug into it, it was clear that SpaceX has been designing for reusability all along,"

However you look at it, SpaceX did a pretty good job with F9.

[Anonymous No.9540310]

>>9540252
>an Ariane 5's first stage
This not a proper comparison because Ariane 5 has solid boosters, nor could it lift itself off the pad without them.

>but it's not like ULA or CNES engineers aren't landing their rockets simply because they don't want to."
This is ofc wrong, they do not want to do reuse, and have published plenty of literature saying reuse would never work/be profitable.

[Anonymous No.9540315]

>>9539819
That thing is only method of delivery humans to Deep Space Habitat, they didn't show lander yet.

[Anonymous No.9540322]

>>9540315
There is no lander, altair was cancelled with Constellation
There is no rocket, there is no habitats, there is no lander, and orion will likely never actually fly

[Anonymous No.9540323]

>>9539748
>actually NASA is working on Orion which will take people to Mars in in 2024
EM-11 is planned for 2033.

[Anonymous No.9540351]

>>9540180
But it does.

[Anonymous No.9540371]

>>9540322
Hi.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_Flight_Test_1

[Anonymous No.9540376]

>>9540161
>Getting 30% more lift than a Delta IV Heavy in a single stick is now not impressive.
>>>/reddit/
>>9540162
Samefag.
>>9540165
What's so retarded about SMART? A deployable heat shield and parasol is now overly complicated and convoluted? Just because it doesn't make the soyboys cream their pants at a rocket landing doesn't mean it's retarded.

[Anonymous No.9540390]

You don’t get it.

>2019
>SpaceX successfully launched a crewed dragon v2
>There’s two launches in a row, separated by one day
> First launch goes smoothly, Block 5 F9 RTLS
> Elon says on Twitter “oops we forgot the first stage for the second launch, guess we will have to launch another”
> Put 20 starling sats in a fairing
> Reuse the first stage that landed the day before, and launch the sats in orbit.
> Elon makes a star link presentation following the success
> Lot of buzzwords and half truth, 10% of the internet market, high bandwidth low speed internet everywhere, team up with google to enhance the coverage.
> Starlink is a different company from SpaceX that makes an IPO
> Get a few dozen billions at the IPO
>Use these to fund BFR
> Since F9 can’t launch and maintain the constellation, it will be scaled down to an iridium, or at best one web competitor until BFR flies.
>BFR flies in 2023-2026

[Anonymous No.9540410]

>>9540390
>elon musk ruins the internet because he sells access to niggers & hues for 5 dollars a month

thanks redditors

[Anonymous No.9540421]

>>9540376
>>9540376
Reusability is a dumb meme if ULA falls for it they are going to kill themselves.
>bringing engines with parachutes
LMAO. Whoever defends that shit is a moron theres like billion things wrong with it but I'm not surprised redditors are retarded and like it.

[Anonymous No.9540451]

Say what you will about Elon, at least he is actually putting billions of dollar towards useful stuff.

[Anonymous No.9540458]

and you've accomplished Nothing in life so that makes you a f****** idiot>>9540421

[Anonymous No.9540460]

>>9540376

SMART is convoluted because it involves costly labor intensive recovery and refurbishment.

Parachutes are not straightforward as even SpaceXs seemingly simple fairing recovery attempts show.

It's a desperate attempt from ULA to pretend they are doing something on the re-usability front by digging out old 60's era recovery strategy.

They will either drop the engine recovery idea entirely or go for full booster recovery.

[Anonymous No.9540488]

>>9540376
Rockets landing on their tails is the coolest fucking thing ever and I don't give a shit if that makes me a soyboy.

[Anonymous No.9540554]

>>9538805
is the name a doom reference?

[Anonymous No.9540570]

>>9540460
>or go for full booster recovery.
How can they? The only engine they have is the BE-4 for Vulcan
So they would need to design a 5+ BE-4 engine, with no solids, along with vertical landing..

I guess you could horizontally land a booster too, wings & landing gear is likely less dead weight than the 20 tons of landing fuel the F9 uses

[Anonymous No.9540574]

>>9540554
Yes
Officially it’s Big Falcon Rocket but even Elon calls it BFR.

They will also make a prototype that will do suborbital hops and they are calling it Big Falcon Grasshoper (BFG)

[Anonymous No.9540598]

>>9540570
I'm not really sure that the BE-4 is a good engine for landing rockets; it's big, heavy and produces relatively low thrust for it's size. Which means it's going to be a bitch to throttle it low enough for a hoverslam landing and control the first-stage at the same time. I think SpaceX made a good decision clustering small engines because of the great throttling ability and control it gives their rockets, and that Blue Origin are going to have a terrible time successfully landing the NG first-stage on a barge.

[Anonymous No.9540622]

>>9540598
Big clusters can fail, see N-1, but it was made by intoxicated bolsheviks, not today.

[Anonymous No.9540657]

your the only nigger can hear in here>>9540410

[Anonymous No.9540668]

>>9540598
Per cm of diameter they will both have basically identical thrust. BE-4 is roughly 50% bigger, but it has also roughly 50% more thrust (2.400 vs. 1.700). When it comes to producing engines that throttle reliably and are build from the ground up to be re-used many times Blue Origin clearly has the edge on SpaceX. Having more smaller ones though is better if one of them fail.

[Anonymous No.9540676]

>>9540460
One helicopter pilot isn't exactly "labour intensive". Refurbishment always has to get done.

I'll laugh my ass off if SMART actually turns out to be cheaper than landing the whole rocket.

[Anonymous No.9540677]

>>9540390
> half truth
a half truth is still a lie, if that's the case that would make him just a billionaire snake oil salesman

[Anonymous No.9540685]

>>9540676
Then imagine if engine smashes into blades.

[Anonymous No.9540694]

>>9540668
>When it comes to producing engines that throttle reliably and are build from the ground up to be re-used many times Blue Origin clearly has the edge on SpaceX.

Oh really? How many rockets have Blue Origin reused again?

Also there's no indication that the BE-4 is a reliable engine, it hasn't been tested for long and it's already blown up twice.

[Anonymous No.9540702]

>>9540229
You're breaking my heart here because I thought Blue Origin was much better positioned for new technology than ESA/NASA/Roscosmos

[Anonymous No.9540720]

>>9540694
They have re-used a New Shepard 5 times already.

SpaceX is only testing scaled models of Raptor, they aren't even into proper testing phase yet.

[Anonymous No.9540741]

>proven company that hasn’t failed a goal yet, has made gigantic leaps in space tech
>vs some dumb virgin wannabe nerds on 4chan

Yeah the BFR is a meme, lmfao. Elon is a hack he isn’t even SMART like me, one look at the rocket I know it’s gonna fail! Elon sucks lol!

[Anonymous No.9540742]

>>9540741
>yet

[Anonymous No.9540745]

>>9539015
>no reused parts

the two side cores were reused, and they regularly reuse boosters for normal F9 missions. what an idiot

[Anonymous No.9540785]

>>9540720
Just because footage hasn't been released doesn't mean a full-scale model hasn't been tested yet, and said footage will likely be released in September at IAC; also I'm talking about orbital rockets not overpriced fairground rides.

[Anonymous No.9540792]

>>9540676

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lftGq6QVFFI

lol you can tell the younger ULA guy is doubtful and just wants to keep his job

option 1: with a little extra hardware, some legs and fins and some fuel, land entire first stage

option 2: throw away tanks, add high temp shield and a parachute, and hope the chopper catches it

[Anonymous No.9540798]

>>9540785
>SpaceX not immediately releasing footage if they had it

This is SpaceX we are talking about, making headlines as often as possible is an important part of their fund-raising strategy. If they didn't releasy any footage yet, we can safely assume that's because it doesn't exist.

[Anonymous No.9540801]

>>9540741
>hasn’t failed goal yet
>has never heard of hyperloop

[Anonymous No.9540817]

>>9538805
Tesla Roadster on a free return to Mars is literally happening. I don't know why you think BFR is unrealistic.

[Anonymous No.9540835]

>>9538809
>X is scientificly sound
>X was possible with 1960s technology
>X is difficult and expensive
>therefore X will never happen
I guess salty faggots like being BTFO.

[Anonymous No.9540848]

>>9539424
Mercury Atlas was literally a single stage to orbit. The first US man in orbit was put there by a SSTO.
>SSTO is therefore impossible
The Saturn V was fucking huge
>Large rockes are therefore impossible
really likes and subcribes my social media account

[Anonymous No.9540851]

>>9540792
Reusability and landing them are two different set of things. Reusability simply means the engine survives lots of full burns without breaking.
Now to landing. SpaceX's landings are not exactly very soft. They look like that from far away, but they actually put a lot of stress on the engine. This is also why SpaceX is now also going for deep throtteling with the Raptor engines. With them you can hover above the launch pad and make a true soft landing that doesnt put a lot of stress onto the engine and has a very low risk of failure.
The much bigger downside to landing is however that you losing a lot of theoretical payload. The reusable BFR is designed to put 150.000 kg into LEO, while the non-reusable can carry almost twice that (250.000 kg). E.g. landing is expensive as fuck. If you can make the engines reusable without having to land them, that's a very big advantage.

[Anonymous No.9540854]

>>9539509
>the proof of concept that was designed to only takeoff and land was suborbital
not even suborbital, but it was physical proof vertical landing of a rocket was possible.

[Anonymous No.9540860]

>>9540792
>dat video
>the airbus one in the suggestions

The most realistic option is to simply go full expendable and try to cut costs in manufacturing then secure some customers.
The other is very bad PR and probably the refurbishment and transport will outweigh the benefits - F9 style engine restarts to kill velocity and excessive heat, and parachute assisted ocean splashdown. Then fish it back and see if saltwater is as deadly as some say. The saturn nazis were thinking of doing something similar so surely it can't be THAT bad, right? No matter how damaging the ocean is I'm sure it won't compare to what the memes will do.

[Anonymous No.9540866]

>>9540090
>The upper stage giant space shuttle without wings that can reenter from orbital speeds and land vertically seems like absolute fantasy though, and I literally won't believe that until I see it.
The Soyuz capsule lands on a rocket assisted parachute. Why are you calling things impossible when every feature of it already exists separately in other parts of spaceflight?

Consider the air force space planes, unmanned and land like the space shuttle. If you launched it with a SpaceX rocket you would have a recovered first stage, recovered orbital stage and only the second stage missing.

Why do you think recovering the second stage will continue to be impossible?

[Anonymous No.9540873]

>>9540203
As long as you file a public flight plan and maintain a safety record, nobody cares.

[Anonymous No.9540880]

>>9540860
>Then fish it back and see if saltwater is as deadly as some say. The saturn nazis were thinking of doing something similar so surely it can't be THAT bad, right? No matter how damaging the ocean is I'm sure it won't compare to what the memes will do.


is there anyone that has tried this - dunking an engine then trying to fire it up?

[Anonymous No.9540881]

>>9540210
>Rockets are naturally less sensitive to weather conditions than winged aircraft.

For the landing manuveur? I highly doubt that.

[Anonymous No.9540883]

>>9540860
>The most realistic option is to simply go full expendable and try to cut costs in manufacturing then secure some customers.
The problem with that is they've been making Soyuz rockets for half a century and they've made over a thousand of them and they still cost $60 million each.

If anybody ever makes a true reusable "launch 150 tons for $10 million" system that just kills the entire concept of expendable rockets forever, it's like you made a billion dollar investment in horse carriages

[Anonymous No.9540885]

>>9539295
Math and programming majors need jobs too anon

[Anonymous No.9540896]

>>9538912
>>9538922
"/g/ - Technology" is the best board, but good luck with making SpaceX threads on /g/, unless it is about programming shit.

[Anonymous No.9540897]

>>9539015
I completely agree.

[Anonymous No.9540901]

>>9540880
Apparently these were done on the H-1 including test fires post-bath.

>"The test program scheduled a series of three immersion tests with subsequent hot firing in the test stand. The first test was performed with known preservative measures, the second with less preservation, and the third and final test with no preservation methods applied. The salt water immersion was performed at Port Canaveral, Florida, and the dismantling, checking of components, assembly, and hot firing at the MSFC, Huntsville, Alabama."

>1. First test – March, 1961. H-1 engine was:
>a. Prepared and static fired.
>b. Immersed in salt water to a depth of 10 feet for 2 hours, and half -submerged for 2 hours.
>c. Purged. Preservations were applied.
>d. Stored for 2 weeks.
>e. Dismantled, inspected, cleaned, damaged parts were replaced, and engine was assembled.
>f. Hot fired for short duration and full duration (150 seconds).

There were more tests.
source: NSF forum posts and from there google leading to http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=5948

[Anonymous No.9540905]

>>9540901

Posting the other info for those who won't open the page.
>2. Second test – June, 1961:
>a. Immersed H-1 engine to a depth of 10 feet for 1 hour, half submerged for 3 hours, and on the surface for 3 hours.
>b. Waited 12 hours before purging, and applying minimum
>preservatives.
>c. Upon arrival at the MSFC, engine was dismantled, inspected, cleaned, damaged parts were replaced, and engine was assembled
>d. Hot-fired for short duration and full duration.

>3. Third test immersion in August, 1961; hot fired in March, 1962.
>a. Dropped H-1 engine into water to simulate water entry conditions, immersed it, held it half-submerged, and on the surface for a total of 9 hours.
>b, Engine washed with fresh water; – no preservative compounds were used.
>c. Upop arrival at the MSFC, engine was dismantled, inspected, partially cleaned, ind left in storage.
>d. Six months later the engine was assembled and hot-fired for short duration and full duration.

>"In order to establish an approximate cost factor, a log was kept of the procedures, reconditioning manhours, materials, and an itemized list of replaced engine parts. The cost to recover and recondition the H- 1 engine was approximately 5 per cent of the cost of a new one."

[Anonymous No.9540909]

The SpaceX "vision" of going to Mars is laughable. The animations where 100 people stand next to each other at the top of the BFR, who is only refueled once and off you go, is so far from reality its not even funny.
Just to survive the trip there you are going to need a habitat close to the size of the ISS. So you will have to assemble the habitat going there using 3-4 BFR-launches. Then you will also need additional cargo for Mars, because you are going to live there for at least 1,5 years. So you would launch another 4-5 BFR and assemble another "ISS" that contains all the cargo you need to survive on Mars for two years. So all in all, for a crewed mission of 4-6 people, you will need 7-9 BFR launches, that assemble two big spaceships in space.
Also, if the two spaceships' engines are going to be liquid fueled, then they will have to be even bigger, because you will need a lot of fuel to go to Mars in a reasonable time frame. So potentially, count in another 3-4 BFR launches, and another "ISS" that contains nothing but fuel.

[Anonymous No.9540949]

>>9540909
>Just to survive the trip there you are going to need a habitat close to the size of the ISS
Well, one BFR spaceship has 875 cubic meters pressurized and the ISS has 931 cubic meters, so that's about covered.

[Anonymous No.9540957]

>>9540909

the entire point of BFR is that with rapid and full reusability high number of launches is not a problem anymore

think having a launch multiple times a week

[Anonymous No.9540973]

>>9540909
Depending on a number of factors I'm not going to spend time listing, the general consensus of trip time to Mars from Earth is 130 to 300 days. As far as their CGI video goes, I really don't think that matters, since it is CGI, old in concept, and not real. Also, there's like 20-25ish CGI people on that CGI rocket. That's just a transport trip without a ton of gear. The gear would have been landed both before and after that. At max, they'd need like 9 to 20 tons of food depending on the number of days travel, just for the trip itself one way. 18 to 40 tons for both ways. Roughly 959lbs per week while they stay there. A 10 week stay would need 4.8 tons of food. So, the longest round trip with a 10-week stay on Mars would need 44.8 tons of food. (Based on some random block of the average American food intake for a year.) I'm sure those food numbers can be far lower in reality. According to wikipedia right now, the BFR's payload to LEO, while being reusable, is 165 tons. It makes two launches, one for people with cargo and one for fuel.

It seems doable.

[Anonymous No.9541024]

>>9540905
>The cost to recover and recondition the H- 1 engine was approximately 5 per cent of the cost of a new one.

holy shit, and thats for a salt water marinated one

[Anonymous No.9541077]

>>9540676
>Refurbishment always has to get done.
Yeah, like all the "refurbishment" needed after a jet makes an intercontinental flight. They might as well just pull the engines off and put them in a whole new plane, right? Once you start recovering the vehicle intact, you can tweak the design until all you need to do is refill the consumables.

>I'll laugh my ass off if SMART actually turns out to be cheaper than landing the whole rocket.
Engine recovery would be an interesting idea, if it weren't coming *after* the development of flyback boosters.

With "SMART", they're still throwing away most of the rocket. They're just recovering parts. They have to go through construction and validation of the whole newly-built vehicle again from scratch, they have all the usual maiden flight risks.

[Anonymous No.9541082]

>>9540881
>>Rockets are naturally less sensitive to weather conditions than winged aircraft.
>For the landing manuveur? I highly doubt that.
Rockets fly by thrust, not lift. They're designed to minimize interaction with the atmosphere. They can have terrific control authority to compensate for wind conditions.

Anyway, you can build whatever shelter you need from the wind around the landing site, if it comes to that.

[Anonymous No.9541086]

>>9541077
ULA and NASA aren't interested in cutting down cost, they want paychecks and stagnate for decades like Soyuz.

[Anonymous No.9541121]

>>9541082
>They can have terrific control authority to compensate for wind conditions

Except SpaceX is always delaying their launches if the weather isn't pitch perfect because they know the landing won't succeed otherways.

[Anonymous No.9541157]

>>9540949
>Well, one BFR spaceship has 875 cubic meters pressurized

The whole spaceship - including the engines and so on - is going to be 50m tall, and have a diameter of 9m, so that number is obviously bullshit.

[Anonymous No.9541166]

>>9541121
They're still flying high-value, almost irreplaceable customer payloads at a low rate. It makes no sense for them to push through when weather conditions are less than ideal.

The time to experiment with flying in harsh conditions will be when they're doing many launches of their own Starlink satellites, and can tolerate a significant probability of launch failure.

[Anonymous No.9541168]

>>9541157
Innumeracy is a hell of a thing. A cylinder 50m tall and 9m in diameter has a volume of over 3000 cubic meters. If you look at pictures of BFR, nearly half of the length is dedicated to payload.

[Anonymous No.9541170]

>>9541121
1. No reason to have go fever. Anyone at spacex, even a janitor, is allowed to directly call up Elon before a launch and voice concern over launching.
2. High level winds and F9 are a bad match. The fineness ratio of a F9 is like a billion...

[Anonymous No.9541183]

>>9538805
>develop F9
>also work on getting FH to work
>finally get FH to launch years past the stated date
>cancel your commercial cis-lunar flight to delay it for the development of another rocket
why?

>>9540957
>multiple launches a week with a low but non-zero failure rate of a percent or two
oh boy

[Anonymous No.9541188]

>>9541183
Move that percentage a couple decimal places to the right, buddy

[Anonymous No.9541196]

>>9541188
>BFR is going to have a 1 in 10000 to 1 in 100000 failure rate

[Anonymous No.9541199]

>>9541168
Considering they are going to store the fuel in there, that isn't very much. Also, the ISS can rely on resupply missions every couple of months. No such thing when you are going to Mars.

[Anonymous No.9541203]

Could you stick a falcon first stage on top of a falcon heavy instead of the current second stage?

[Anonymous No.9541206]

>>9541196
And? Planes used to be horribly unreliable too. And trains used to be horribly unreliable. And cars.

[Anonymous No.9541209]

>>9541203
>that’s a nice fineness ratio you got there, shame if someone sneezed on it

[Anonymous No.9541215]

>>9540949
>>9540909
What you've got to understand about ISS is that it's extremely mass-inefficient. With its tiny 3-meter diameter modules, all of these need docking interfaces, micrometeor armor, thermal management layers, etc. And because of its weird spidery design, they need to be structurally strong to carry load on long lever arms at odd angles for reboosting operations. On top of that, the materials and design are conservative and primitive, mostly using aluminum rather than carbon fiber composite or high-strength polymers, and taking no structural advantage of the air pressure within.

This is why Bigelow's talking about launching a complete space station with one third the volume of ISS (which was built with a $50+ billion launch campaign over more than a decade) on a single Atlas V.

[Anonymous No.9541216]

>>9541206
Yes, who doesn't remember all these planes that blew up before the Wright Brothers finally figured flying out.

[Anonymous No.9541219]

>>9541216
I don’t think you understand my point. Have no planes crashed after kitty hawk?

[Anonymous No.9541220]

>>9541199
>>If you look at pictures of BFR, nearly half of the length is dedicated to payload.
>Considering they are going to store the fuel in there
No, they aren't going store the fuel in the nearly half of the length of BFR dedicated to payload.

It's not that hard to fit 875 cubic meters into a 3200 cubic meter volume, while still having lots of other volume for other things.

[Anonymous No.9541222]

>>9541215
But muh spess shuttle, muh 80s super technology.

[Anonymous No.9541224]

>>9541215
You can fuck around with a 50 million rocket, but you can't fuck around with a 50 billion rocket. Experimenting with spaceships that are going to Mars won't happen. If that mission fails, manned spaceflight is dead for at least 50 years. Musk's "I give it a 50% chance to work"-approach works for smaller rockets, but that isn't flying with a spaceship to Mars.

Also, as >>9541199 pointed out, that spaceship needs also to be able to repair itself. Something that the ISS mainly does through supply missions. You are not going to do that with a spaceship to Mars. So this spaceship will actually be significantly bigger than the ISS.

[Anonymous No.9541226]

>>9541206
>>9541219
>Planes used to be horribly unreliable too. And trains used to be horribly unreliable. And cars.
Rockets for the time being will failure rates of a few percent because they conditions under which they operate are so volatile. Plane and Car engines don't burn fuel at 3000 Kelvin,they don;t burn up their fuel in hours, they are not 90% fuel by mass, they don't have to use turbo pumps to move it to a combustion chambers at cryogenic temperatures, and they certainly don't have to have to undergo as stringent pressure changes like rocket does through max Q.

Planes did have 1 in 10k -1 in 100k failure rate 50-60 years ago and are about 1 in 10m today, but that's because they are fundamentally less volatile than rockets, same goes for cars. Its not an apples to apples comparison.

[Anonymous No.9541229]

>>9541226
will have

[Anonymous No.9541231]

>>9541226
Sounds like an engineering issue to me

[Anonymous No.9541240]

>>9541231
kek

[Anonymous No.9541272]

>>9541226
Rockets fail because of mistakes. If you stop making mistakes, they stop failing. Just don't make mistakes, and your rocket won't blow up.

[Anonymous No.9541276]

So ULA's response to Falcon Heavy is a more expensive but underperforming Vulcan. The only advantage over the FH, is a hydrogen fuel upperstage. Which can stay in space for years ,and be reused and reused.

[Anonymous No.9541283]

>>9541272
>Rockets fail because of mistakes. If you stop making mistakes, they stop failing.
Wow, great syllogism fagatron, I'm sure every aerospace engineer, public and private, for past 60 years has never though of that.

>>9541276
>Which can stay in space for years ,and be reused and reused
that may actually be worth it

[Anonymous No.9541285]

>>9541272
this is Elon’s thinking too. After FH launched, he said that there is zero reason for any other FH to fail if you do exactly the same thing a 2nd time, as the design itself is proven. It’s defects and changes which cause failures.

[Anonymous No.9541290]

>>9541224
>You can fuck around with a 50 million rocket, but you can't fuck around with a 50 billion rocket. Experimenting with spaceships that are going to Mars won't happen.
Doesn't that sound like a pretty good reason to not use a $50 billion rocket? The BFS will be far closer to $50 million than $50 billion (probably around $150 million per spaceship capable of carrying humans to Mars, and about the same for the booster, plus around $100 million for the tanker, with far lower costs per flight thanks to reusability). Development (i.e. the process of fucking around with things until they work properly) might cost $5-10 billion, but they're keeping the unit cost low (which also helps control the development cost).

Going to Mars without experimenting with the spaceships you want to use won't happen. That's why NASA's favored concepts are garbage, and SpaceX's plan is good.

[Anonymous No.9541294]

>>9541283
>I'm sure every aerospace engineer, public and private, for past 60 years has never though of that
Private orbital spaceflight is only about a decade and a half old. As for the government, spaceflight's big budgets were too juicy for bureaucrats to allow engineers to avoid mistakes needed to sustain those high costs.

[Anonymous No.9541295]

>>9541276
Mass to orbit isn't what the DIVH and the Vulcan will be for. Vulcan in general is to explicitly rid ULA of the entire Delta line as they really only kept it around to serve the US government. It's already completely booked until the end of its life cycle in 2023, and when it does finally launch, it will have launched 2 things that weren't NROL missions. Orion test capsule back in 2014 and Parker Solar Probe this July. It's really only for launching payloads into highly complicated, expensive, and classified orbits. Vulcan with an upgraded Centaur would be able to put 30% more mass into orbit in a single stick.

[Anonymous No.9541300]

>>9541290
Yeah, one thing breaks on that ship and then pray to god they can make it back to earth or they will die there. This happens, and you can kiss goodbye manned space exploration for this century.

[Anonymous No.9541304]

>>9541285
>After FH launched, he said that there is zero reason for any other FH to fail if you do exactly the same thing a 2nd time, as the design itself is proven

What about CRS 7?

[Anonymous No.9541305]

>>9541283
It won't. Refueling is a meme. Too expensive and difficult. And orbital rendezvous with tugs that have been rotting in space for who knows how long drastically increase the risk of losing expensive payloads. I wish ULA actually acted with dignity instead of wasting effort on worthless PR wars with soyboy companies.

[Anonymous No.9541308]

>>9538833
This guy buttmad

[Anonymous No.9541329]

>>9540203
>we're going to fill aluminum tubes full of explosive chemicals and let them fly around with hundreds of people near major cities????

And yet I can still fly in to LAX and JFK, so I dont think its really a big deal. Not like every airport in a major city shut down permanently after 9/11

[Anonymous No.9541339]

>>9541305
The upper stage they're talking about is ACES which is basically a hydrolox powered space tug and will be able to hang around in orbit for months and fire it's engines many times. This all sounds great but, and it's a massive but, ACES is aimed to enter service in 2024 and anyone who's familiar with the space industry knows that this date will probably slip. The Vulcan that will enter service in the early 2020's will be powered first by a centaur upper stage which is just the normal one they currently use on their Delta 4 and Atlas 5 rockets which can be surpassed in performance by the FH's modified upper stage.

[Anonymous No.9541341]

>>9541300
Oh, come on. Apollo killed a crew and carried on. The shuttle killed a crew in flight and was continued for decades (not to mention deaths on the ground). Soyuz killed two crews, and became the most prolific crew launch system of all time. SpaceShipTwo killed a pilot and a testing crew, and they're still carrying on.

Ghoulishly anticipating that one fatal accident will eventually happen and stop SpaceX is just, "Increasingly nervous man..." for dinospace fanboys.

>>9541295
>Vulcan with an upgraded Centaur would be able to put 30% more mass into orbit in a single stick.
The Vulcan core's just 20% more thrust than Atlas V, with marginal Isp improvement and a requirement for more tank mass per unit payload. Most of the performance improvement is coming from more and bigger expensive solid boosters, and a hideously costly proposed upper stage with four RL-10s and lots of potential for failure.

Where's this 30% figure coming from, anyway? Last I heard, they were only expecting a slight improvement (around 5%) over Delta IV Heavy performance, with all options maxed out.

[Anonymous No.9541354]

>>9541341
That's old data, they've since announced improvements that will boost Centaur's power, but you wouldn't expect to see these on Wikipedia as they are too busy masturbating all over the Falcon 9's page.

[Anonymous No.9541360]

>>9541341
What? There were no fatalies during all Apollo missions. During testing, yes, but not during the missions. Space Shuttle was almost done after the first incident, it only lived because it was still the Cold War and buying rockets from the russians wasn't an option yet.

[Anonymous No.9541364]

>>9541360
it also survived columbia somehow. What's your take on that?

[Anonymous No.9541373]

>>9541305

>Refueling is a meme. Too expensive and difficult.

dumbest thing I ever read, congratulations for the honor

[Anonymous No.9541377]

>>9541364
It didn't, it was discontinued shortly after.

[Anonymous No.9541378]

>>9541354
>30% more lift
God, I hate him. "Lift" has a clear, established meaning in aerospace, and "payload to [unspecified] orbit" isn't it. This guy lies like a motherfucker, and when he's being vague, you can be sure there's a big lie hiding in the ambiguity.

In reality, they haven't even selected a booster engine for Vulcan. They haven't even committed to funding Vulcan development to completion. Requiring a new upper stage for Vulcan is likely an excuse to demand more government funding and push the launch date back even further, so they can keep taking money without producing results.

Remember that all of this started with the US government merely asking them to stop buying Russian engines for Atlas V. ULA responded by cancelling Delta IV to make Atlas V their main offering, and demanding government funds to develop a whole new launch vehicle. Now they're making excuses to push the time it'll be ready to replace Altas V further and further back.

>you wouldn't expect to see these on Wikipedia as they are too busy masturbating all over the Falcon 9's page
Holy shit, idiot. Anyone can update information on Wikipedia. It's really easy. But you'd better have a clear, unambiguous statement from a credible source to cite.

[Anonymous No.9541381]

>>9541377

wrong, it was discontinued a decade after and flew many more missions and ended mostly because it was old, obsolete and expensive

a single accident is not going to kill any space program, period

[Anonymous No.9541384]

>>9541360
>There were no fatalies during all Apollo missions.
I didn't say it killed a crew in flight, I said it killed a crew. They died in the Apollo capsule, on the launchpad, doing some final tests before a planned launch.

[Anonymous No.9541392]

>>9541378
Delta IV never had any customers other than the US government so they'd been wanting to get rid of it for a while, and it's not a new upper stage, it's an upgrade to the already existing Centaur. Having two vehicles is stupid and cost ineffective so they are consolidating it into one.

>Holy shit, idiot. Anyone can update information on Wikipedia. It's really easy. But you'd better have a clear, unambiguous statement from a credible source to cite.
That's why the most recent update to the Vulcan page has been from a literally who Twitter account saying that it will launch in the mid 2020s despite actual ULA sources saying it will be in 2020. Let's not forget that the main picture for the page is a cancelled 4m Vulcan in addition to the rocket still mentioning a tri-core.

[Anonymous No.9541415]

>>9541381
>>9541384
>>9541364
Crew-missions are not so popular, because it is expensive and dangerous. This will basically be the third try in achieving somewhat cheap, safe and reliable spacefaring, if it fails again enthusiasm will certainly go down, and it is already rather low comparing it to the 60s.

That being said, all of these accidents happened despite NASA being very conservative and putting safety first. So how much is going to go wrong with a company whos philosophy basically is "let's do it wrong first"? I mean, everybody is hyping SpaceX because FH was a success, but that hype will go into the exact opposite direction if the BFR isn't.

[Anonymous No.9541419]

>>9541392
My point was, if you're bothered about what's on the wikipedia page, you can fix it yourself. Anyone could fix it. Nobody cares. Everyone's apathetic about Vulcan, because it's such an obvious boondoggle. You only argue in its favor here where you can enjoy immediate conflict about it by being a contrarian.

>That's why the most recent update to the Vulcan page has been from a literally who Twitter account saying that it will launch in the mid 2020s despite actual ULA sources saying it will be in 2020.
It says "mid-2020", like "June-August 2020", not "the mid-2020s". And it's bullshit. They haven't even finalized their choice of engine. They're not going to go from not being sure whether they'll use methane or kerosene fuel to launching in two years and a few months.

>it's not a new upper stage, it's an upgrade to the already existing Centaur.
Centaur V, a 5-meter diameter stage with 4 RL-10s, is not an upgrade to the 3-meter-diameter stage with 1 or 2 RL-10s. It's a new upper stage, just like Falcon 9 wasn't an upgrade of Falcon 1. The tiny single-RL-10 Centaur is already more expensive than the Atlas V booster, with the high cost of the RL-10 being the main reason for it.

>Delta IV never had any customers other than the US government
And Atlas V has barely had any other customers either, even with heavy US government subsidies. ULA was formed with the explicit justification that neither of the parent companies could build a competitive launch vehicle, and it would be cheaper for the government to support their merged operations. Vulcan is in no way a plan to become commercially competitive, or lighten the cost burden on the government (which is exactly what they profit from).

[Anonymous No.9541427]

>>9540371
empty boiler plate you retard. I can call an empty chasis "car" but it doesnt make it one

[Anonymous No.9541429]

>>9541415

>That being said, all of these accidents happened despite NASA being very conservative and putting safety first.
>So how much is going to go wrong with a company whos philosophy basically is "let's do it wrong first"?

This is not true at all, quite the opposite. Shuttle was a relatively dangerous design, with solid rockets and vulnerable heat shield. Yet NASA put people even on its first flight. SLS is not much safer and yet NASA wants to put people on its second flight. Contrast with SpaceX Falcon that will have dozens of successful unmanned missions under its belt before crew is allowed to fly on it, despite flying an inherently safer design.

SpaceX is significantly more risk averse than NASA.

[Anonymous No.9541430]

>>9541427
>Being this mad over being btfo.

[Anonymous No.9541438]

>>9541415
>all of these accidents happened despite NASA being very conservative and putting safety first.
That is bullshit. NASA is very bureaucratic and puts ass-covering first (i.e. everyone exaggerates safety concerns so if something goes wrong, they can show that they were "duly concerned"), with occasional upper management sweeping in and demanding actual production of results, at which point legitimate safety concerns get lost in the mass of fake ones people invented as ass armor.

>a company whos philosophy basically is "let's do it wrong first"
You mean, "let's achieve good results by learning from actual experience rather than pretending uninformed analysis by out-of-control bureaucracy is an affordable and effective substitute"?

[Anonymous No.9541441]

>>9541430
The EFT-1 test article was not a usable Orion capsule, it was just a test article.

[Anonymous No.9541445]

>>9539481
I love how you folks are constantly saying at every step how everything SpaceX attempts will/is failing.... And then they succeed and keep having successes. Don't you ever get tired of being wrong? Or is it a hobby or shill thing?

[Anonymous No.9541448]

>>9540792
lmao @ the "this is bullshit" look on his face

[Anonymous No.9541451]

>>9541445
I told you they exist.

[Anonymous No.9541453]

>>9541445

They've lucked out so far but their "successes" are arguable and always well below what they promised.

I am sufficiently intelligent to remain rational and critical.

[Anonymous No.9541457]

>>9541445
I have always retained some degree of skepticism in the face with anything with that Musk says.
We were supposed to have the FH 5 years ago and the hyperloop is supposed to work.

[Anonymous No.9541459]

>>9541453
>the truth is somewhere in the middle
A cheap shortcut to convince yourself that, despite investing no effort and being of insufficient intellectual capacity to properly grasp the matter, you're being more reasonable than the people who have actually understood the details enough to get it right.

[Anonymous No.9541470]

>>9540371
how the hell is orion the only crewed capsule to have a test orbit and be the one that's most delayed

first flights - spacex & boeing
3-4 years later - lockheed

[Anonymous No.9541476]

>>9541470
Welcome to NASA's development hell. Look at JWST history.

[Anonymous No.9541482]

>>9541448
It isn't though. It's really simple, this means its cheap and reliable.

They will have a similar reusability-rate without having to do all the R&D required for landing, and because they don't have to save fuel for the landing they can increase the payload.

[Anonymous No.9541483]

>>9541470
Reminder: Dragon's been flying for over 7 years now. Dragon 2 has some upgrades, but it's nowhere near an all-new vehicle.

[Anonymous No.9541499]

>>9541482
>They will have a similar reusability-rate
Falcon 9: fairing aside, the booster is about 80% of hardware cost. With fairing recovery, the value of recovered hardware is about 85% of hardware cost.

Falcon Heavy: value of recovered hardware is about 95% of hardware cost.

The Atlas V upper stage costs more than the lower stage, as does a full set of solid boosters. They expect the Vulcan booster to be cheaper than the Atlas V booster, but they're switching to more costly boosters and upper stage.

Vulcan without boosters: recovering about 20% of hardware cost.

Vulcan with boosters: recovering about 10% of hardware cost.

[Anonymous No.9541508]

>>9541499
>They expect the Vulcan booster to be cheaper than the Atlas V booster, but they're switching to more costly boosters and upper stage.
Sorry, to be clear, I mean the first stages and solid-fuel strap-on boosters, respectively.

[Anonymous No.9541509]

>>9540973
Just looked it up because I was interested and on the ISS, astronauts use 1.83 lbs of food a day, 0.27 lbs of that being packaging. So assuming that for a larger-scale Mars mission packaging can be reduced at least in half (group meals instead of individually packaged, etc) it's approximately 1.5lbs/person/day. For a Hohmman transfer to mars (9 months), that's just over 5 tons of food for a 25 man crew which isn't that significant in the grand scheme of things.

Water is really the biggest issue since on the ISS water use is ~3 gal per person per day. If we assume the worst-case with no water recycling, that's 85 tons of water for just the 9 month trip, not even counting what would be needed on the surface or for a potential return. Water recycling and environmental systems are going to be the big barriers to any mars mission. If the water recycler broke down a month into the mission the astronauts would really be shit out of luck.

[Anonymous No.9541533]

>>9541509
ISS water use is lavish. If there were a breakdown in water recycling, they could survive on 1 quart per day, under 8 tons of water for the trip.

Water recycling is not technically challenging. They can have maintainable systems with spare parts.

[Anonymous No.9541567]

>>9541509
You can get water on Mars.

[Anonymous No.9541584]

>>9541430
new rules of the internet: if you lose to someone you become his slave.
I am super duper good and good vibnes so im gonna go easy on ya little kiddy boy inferior, so pretty please please do refrain from posting in this thread ever againn, haha remember (i coould have done anything to you casue i won im your master)

[Anonymous No.9541588]

>>9541584

[Anonymous No.9541591]

>>9541567
And until you get to mars you'd be dead.

Face it. We are not technologically ready and our rockets are primitive toys.

Without real technology like anti-gravity and zero point energy there is zero hope for humans to step beyond earth.

[Anonymous No.9541597]

>>9541591
>real technology like anti-gravity
woah,maybe finish high school before posting on a science forum? just saying

[Anonymous No.9541635]

>>9541457
You are free to be skeptical, I myself am still somewhat skeptical about BFR, but I won't shit on them because ignoring a now proven track record is just fucking stupid. They have done some absolutely astounding work on F9 and FH no matter how you look at it.

[Anonymous No.9541639]

>>9541509
>What are spare parts

Anyone not carrying spare parts for every essential system over a 3-9 month trip in space deserves to die anyway.

[Anonymous No.9541670]

>>9541509
Mars missions longer than a month would have to involve cooking from ingredients. Instead and packaged finished food.

[Anonymous No.9541678]

>>9541670
that wouldn't be very hard, A colony would require a cook and supplies anyway

[Anonymous No.9541685]

>>9540676
1 chopper pilot
1 chopper that they need to lease & modify
1 crewman to manage the winch
1 "supervisor"
A whole team for testing, designing, building the infrastructure
A team to inspect the recovered engines, tearing them apart to begin with, taking a year+ before you get to practical reuse
Still always need to inspect for damage because of the rough handling it gets

[Anonymous No.9541700]

>>9541678
People also really underestimate hydroponics. I used to work at a hydroponic growers and the amount of food and other plants that came out of that place over a short period of time was fucking incredible. A small space goes a long way for hydroponics, and I hear aeroponics is EVEN BETTER. Also with Hydroponics you can then dig a massive hole, fill with water and use it as a fish pond to help recycle the hydro nutrients and to grow fish for food. Remember that it is a hell of a lot more productive to send bags of ag fertiliser than to send straight food, many kinds of fertiliser are also readily available on the surface in various nitrate forms. This shit isn't rocket science, we have been able to do it for fucking ages.

[Anonymous No.9541756]

>>9541509
They aren't doing a hohmann transfer to mars anyways

[Anonymous No.9541806]

>>9538805
SpaceX could potentially convince people that BFR isn't a meme, if only they weren't one of the most dishonest companies in the history of private space travel. Seriously each launch following the Falcon family as they “revolutionize the launch industry” has been indistinguishable from the rest. Aside from the meme landings, the company’s only party trick has been to overwork and underpay its employees to reduce launch costs, all to make the mythical “full and rapid reuse” seem effective.

Perhaps the die was cast when Musk vetoed the idea of ambitious yet realistic missions like Red and Grey Dragon; he made sure the company would never be mistaken for an innovative force to anything or anybody, just ridiculously questionable government contracts for his companies. SpaceX might be profitable (or not), but it’s certainly the anti-NASA in its refusal of wonder, science and excitement. No one wants to face that fact. Now, thankfully, they no longer have to.

>a-at least the landings are cool though
"No!"
The camerawork is dreadful; the landings of the charred boosters are boring. As I watch, I noticed that every time a Falcon 9 lands, Musk said either “self-sustaining civilization on Mars” or “imagine if you had a 747 and you threw it away after one flight.”

I began marking on the back of an envelope every time one of those phrases was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous. Musk's mind is so governed by clichés that he has no other style of thinking. Later I read a poorly-written news story on SpaceX by some fat web blogger. He wrote something to the effect of, "If these kids are watching these launches now, surely they will work for SpaceX in the future and they too can have paychecks based off of government handouts." And he was quite right. He was not being ironic. When you are a SpaceX fan, you are, in fact, trained to be a mindless supporter of government-funded billionaires.

[Anonymous No.9541812]

>>9541806
t. Jeff Bezos

[Anonymous No.9541819]

>>9541806
its not bad camera work, its shaky cam hiding the poor cgi landings

[Anonymous No.9541839]

>>9541819
Jesus, don't respond to obvious copypasta as if it's a normal comment.

[Anonymous No.9541845]

>>9541806
If only we had flying brooms instead.

[Anonymous No.9541877]

>>9540209
>nobody cared
>milions of people watched the launch

[Anonymous No.9541884]

>>9541877
I'm saying that the naysayers didn't care. The one-two punch of cancelling the moon missions and FH delayed 8 years in a row is more than enough fuel for years of shitposting.

[Anonymous No.9541910]

>600 job openings for BFR
http://www.spacex.com/careers/list
>"but it's a paper rocket guys"

[Anonymous No.9541912]

>>9541509
If the crew dies King Musk will just send the next ship for so long until everything works lol dude nice ULA shill

[Anonymous No.9541928]

>>9541591
>Face it. We are not technologically ready and our rockets are primitive toys.

We already have the science for everything we need to do. It is all an engineering and funding problem now. That's literally nothing at all.

>Without real technology like anti-gravity and zero point energy

Holy shit. Go back to >>>/x/ you fucking mouth breathing retard.

[Anonymous No.9541936]

>>9541670
Some people don't even leave there apartment for years just eating prepackaged food that is uncooked once it arrived to their place long long ago. Also, ISS has been a thing for a long time and they are up there for many months and over a year for some.

[Anonymous No.9541991]

Why the fuck are people humouring the shitposters

[Anonymous No.9541994]

>>9541991
Meta shitposting is still shitposting, kid.

[Anonymous No.9541997]

>>9541936
The spearhead of humanity's first extraterrestrial colony are worthy of far more than the conditions of a subhuman NEET

[Anonymous No.9542002]

>>9540866
I don't think it's impossible but it's a much more difficult undertaking than most people seem to think. Everyone seems to concentrate on the first stage when talking about BFR when that is just an upscaled version of the one thing that SpaceX have really developed themselves and put most of their effort into. The upper stage is something entirely new, to SpaceX and to spaceflight in general. How are they even going to test it re-entering at high speeds when the only thing that can lift it is its own booster? Do they just put the whole thing together and hope it all works on the first attempt?

I won't say it won't happen, but there's no way I'll believe it until I see it.

[Anonymous No.9542005]

>>9542002
suborbital hops with the 2nd stage, dude

[Anonymous No.9542006]

>>9541936
These astronauts will have to perform a lot of daily work outs though to counteract the effects 0-g on their bodies. A high quality diet would greatly help with that. You don't want blind astronauts without muscle mass landing on mars.

[Anonymous No.9542014]

>>9541997
>>9542006
I'm just saying that isn't a thing that would hold them back at all. They literally eat canned food all the time already. High quality doesn't only mean active cooking.

[Anonymous No.9542021]

>>9542006
Could try and spin the rocket to make a bit of gravity and avoid the issues with zero gravity
it would give us bonus research on low gravity effects before they arrive

[Anonymous No.9542053]

>>9542021
That's not really possible on such a small ship.

[Anonymous No.9542066]

>>9542053
it doesn't have to be 1g worth of spin, just non-zero
the design is probably vertical anyway, rendering the idea moot

[Anonymous No.9542070]

>>9542066
The problem is r. You need like an 80m diameter to avoid horrible sickness in the users due to a delta of g between feet and head.

[Anonymous No.9542122]

people on this site have absolutely no self-respect no respect for other people no self more morals all you do is call each other idiots what what do you get out of that does it make you feel better call each other idiots talk to each other like f****** normal people

[Anonymous No.9542125]

>>9542002
>The upper stage is something entirely new, to SpaceX and to spaceflight in general.
No, it's just EDL. Orbital re-entry is something that was solved almost immediately after orbital launch, and worked on the first try. The space shuttle also worked on the first try, without the benefit of modern computer simulation.

It's not that different from Dragon. For Dragon, there's a loading of 1-2.5 t per square meter of cross-sectional area. For BFR, it's 0.2-0.35 t per square meter, and they're using the same ablative heat shield material. They have experience from this kind of loading from the later phases of Dragon entry. They'll be doing tests of upper stage recovery with Falcon 9 starting later this year, for R&D purposes, so they'll gain experience with cylindrical entry bodies that way.

The "wings" are going to make it a bit tricky, but they're just to stabilize it in the same attitude with different centers of mass, not to actually fly in a normal sense.

>How are they even going to test it re-entering at high speeds when the only thing that can lift it is its own booster?
They don't need the full booster for it, just to launch it empty to LEO for re-entry testing. They can do a short 9-engine prototype booster that can lift a prototype ship. They might also do a subscale prototype to launch on top of Falcon Heavy.

[Anonymous No.9542133]

>>9542122
Yeah no shit welcome to imageboards you fucking newfag. If you don't like it then feel free to fuck off any time.

[Anonymous No.9542155]

>>9541936
No gravity for a kitchen

[Anonymous No.9542231]

>>9542125
>No, it's just EDL.
There hasn't been a re-entry vehicle anywhere near this scale other than Shuttle/Buran, and they weren't landing propulsively. I still think the BFR concept is pretty unique and untested in this regard.

Valid points though, there's nothing to say it shouldn't work in theory, and I will be hoping all goes well as much as anyone. I just think the upper stage in particular is a much more ambitious project than most people seem to acknowledge. Heck, It would be an ambitious project for an entire governmental space agency let alone a single private company.

[Anonymous No.9542239]

>>9542002
>How are they even going to test it re-entering at high speeds when the only thing that can lift it is its own booster?
They are going to build a test article that can do single stage to orbit.
Starting first with slower reentries/flights, moving up to full orbital speeds.

[Anonymous No.9542256]

>>9542125
They don't need any booster, it can be fueled and fly itself to LEO
Just needs sea level nozzles on the engines

[Anonymous No.9542267]

>>9542231
>they weren't landing propulsively
That's something they can test as much as they like before going to orbit.

>It would be an ambitious project for an entire governmental space agency let alone a single private company.
A governmental agency is at a disadvantage to a private company when it comes to developing practical technology.

>>9542256
No, the re-entry hardware is too heavy. It can make it to LEO alone without the heat shielding, wings, etc. but not with them.

[Anonymous No.9542459]

>>9539326
The same idiot that thinks that common bulkheads are rare and cause problems.Just another you tube contrarian attention whore

[Anonymous No.9542569]

>>9542459
common bulkheads are great. Saturn V had em.

[Anonymous No.9542584]

>>9542155
You don't need gravity to cook.

[Anonymous No.9542748]

>>9541304
>What about CRS 7?
>>It’s defects and changes which cause failures.
>>defects
>quoting everything except the answer to your question

[Anonymous No.9542785]

Was EmDrive disproved yet?

[Anonymous No.9542805]

>>9542785
Yes

[Anonymous No.9542810]

>>9542805
Keen to see a source

[Anonymous No.9542816]

>>9542810
Law III: To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction

[Anonymous No.9542868]

>>9542816
I mean an actual study of the thing to determine if it was an anomaly or something we don't understand.

[Anonymous No.9542879]

Why is ULA and Yuropoor Space Agency still messing with solid fuel rockets?

[Anonymous No.9542881]

>>9542879
jerbs

[Anonymous No.9542885]

>>9542879
They would use V-2 ethanol rockets if they didn't run out of them.

[Anonymous No.9542951]

>>9540973

>the general consensus of trip time to Mars from Earth is 130 to 300 days.

>>9541509

>For a Hohmman transfer to mars (9 months)


These commonly quoted trajectories are optimized to minimize the amount of fuel (delta-v) required).

Any realistic manned mission will optimize for smallest transit time instead. One way transit to Mars will thus take between 80 to 130 days.

[Anonymous No.9542953]

>>9542053

send two ships, then connect them with hundreds of meters long cables and spin up

[Anonymous No.9542955]

>>9542053

[Anonymous No.9542957]

>>9542955
Fuck that's actually a very good idea.

[Anonymous No.9542958]

>>9542955

[Anonymous No.9542959]

>>9542002

>I don't think it's impossible but it's a much more difficult undertaking than most people seem to think

Empty BFS upper stage is big and light, an ideal object to aerobrake. It will experience less heating than the Shuttle, and have more advanced shield. It is less difficult than some people think.

[Anonymous No.9542961]

>>9542955
>>9542953
>>9542957
>>9542958
need rigid structure otherwise it will destroy itself while spinning

[Anonymous No.9542964]

>>9542955
Good idea, but the problem is passengers are going to get wasted by solar radiation, they really need to have the mass of the engines, fuel tanks and other gear between them and the sun.

[Anonymous No.9542971]

>>9542964

solar radiation is usually not very energetic, hull of the ship should be enough to shield the passengers

the exception is during solar storms, where they would need to go to a dedicated shelter

and for especially strong solar storm the ships would indeed have to disconnect and orient the fuel tanks towards the Sun, not sure how common such storms are, may not be an issue for most journeys

maybe they could even reconnect and spin back up after the storm has ended, however several tons of propellant are needed for spin-up

[Anonymous No.9542984]

>>9542961

Load bearing cable and a lightweight composite truss to keep the ships rigid? As long as the entire connection has mass of less than lets say, 15 tons, it shouldnt be a major issue, considering that the useful payload is 150 tons, not counting ship dry mass or propellant.

[Anonymous No.9542986]

>>9542879
Jobs and military application. Rockets are bullets and only select few crazies think they can be used to move things other than bombs.

[Anonymous No.9542987]

>>9542984
Sure but you are spinning these ships for what reason ?

[Anonymous No.9542993]

>>9542955

cable needs to be 440 meters long if you want 1g, 170 meters long if you want Mars gravity

https://www.artificial-gravity.com/sw/SpinCalc/

shorter cables may be possible but could make some passengers sick

[Anonymous No.9542994]

>>9542987
Journeys longer than martian ones. Even if the low gravity doesn't save the bones it sure as hell will help with settling liquids with all that entails.

[Anonymous No.9542996]

>>9542987

[Anonymous No.9543002]

>>9542955
Send this shit to Elon. You might be onto something.

[Anonymous No.9543012]

I'm not sure if it will be allowed to build such a thing even if possible.
Large space presence will disrupt the balance of power and will make a lot of powerful people unhappy.

[Anonymous No.9543014]

>>9542955
How exactly are they going to accelerate towards Mars if they are spinning x times a minute? How are the solar panels supposed to work?

It would only be possible to spin the ship itself, but it is too small for that. Your feet would feel a different force than your head and you would constantly feel ill.

[Anonymous No.9543016]

>>9543014
They first accelerate and then rendezvous, connect and spin up. It's an engineering challenge, but there's nothing fundamentally impossible about it.

[Anonymous No.9543022]

>>9543014

>How exactly are they going to accelerate towards Mars if they are spinning x times a minute?

They accelerate first, then connect the cable and spin up during coast phase. There is no rush.

>How are the solar panels supposed to work?

As long as the spin axis points towards the Sun, they work as usual. If not, then the power will vary with spin.

[Anonymous No.9543027]

>>9543014
I know you are trolling but there really are people that retarded. Would not recommend indulging them.

[Anonymous No.9543051]

>>9541533
Haven't there been recent developments in using graphite sheets to purify water? I recall something along those lines being in the news.

[Anonymous No.9543077]

>>9543014
Like pic related. You would need additional engines on the sides to perfectly control the spinning. But this way you would still be able to manuveur perfectly, the two ships would have to manuveur perfectly synchronously though.

[Anonymous No.9543085]

>>9543077

>You would need additional engines on the sides to perfectly control the spinning.

The ships already have RCS thrusters, should be more than sufficient for spin-up and any corrections.

[Anonymous No.9543087]

>>9543014
>>9543014
Like pic related. You would need additional engines on the sides to perfectly control the spinning. But this way you would still be able to manuveur perfectly, the two ships would have to manuveur perfectly synchronously though.

[Anonymous No.9543095]

>>9539326
>was right on a few things
>Automatically right on all future things.
Go back to grade school logic nigger.

[Anonymous No.9543128]

>>9543087
Rigid side attachment likely requires severe structural redesigns not to mention the idea to retain the flimsy connection when thrusting...

[Anonymous No.9543135]

>>9543087
If you do it like this, take the extra time to make the cable a module astronauts can crawl through. Then the crews could travel freely between the two ships.

[Anonymous No.9543291]

>>9543087
Why not just go full generation ship and head straight to Alpha Centauri while we're at it?

[Anonymous No.9543315]

>>9543291
You can't get there without nuclear propulsion, and even with that it will take 1000 years, it requires ship much bigger than several BFR.

[Anonymous No.9543475]

>>9543291
>solar panels
>chemical propulsion
>interstellar travel
Alpha Centauri is about 45 trillion kilometers away. Travelling at 15 km/s (the approximate speed of Voyager 2 leaving the solar system), it would take 100,000 years to coast there. You'd barely get a couple of billion km away from the sun before it would be little more than one more star in the sky, and you'd be coasting through a starlit night.

[Anonymous No.9544123]

>>9541806
>I began marking on the back of an envelope
you had me fooled until then, excellent bait

[Anonymous No.9544699]

Rebecca, are you in this thread?

Or Areg maybe?

This is Robert.

[Anonymous No.9544739]

>>9540622

N1's problem had more to do with the engines themselves rather than the amount of them, even the 'fixed' NK-33 failed catastrophically once in only five flights.

[Anonymous No.9544795]

>>9543291

Because there's virtually no research on making a closed ecosystem. REcycling air, water, volatiles, it's all stuff to which we know the answers is vaguely "plants", but that's it. We have no experience in this at all. We'll need lots of practice with rotating habitats before we get it so well figured out that we can just manufacture a standard closed habitat and be able to rely on it.

[Anonymous No.9544880]

>>9544795
The lack of research is disgusting, I mean fuck it's not exactly like it's a big spend compared to some other stupid shit that billions gets blown on.

[Anonymous No.9545158]

>>9542961
it does not need a rigid structure it is a well known and studied concept.

google the term "tumbling pidgeon"

[Anonymous No.9545178]

>>9542955

Looks lame as fuck. Spinning habitat section within a well defined rigid spacecraft frame or bust.

[Anonymous No.9545188]

>>9540203
>BFR launches on suborbital path
>defense satellites detect its orbit will take it to a city center
>automatically sends anti-ballistic missiles to intercept
>dozens of millionaires die on their thousand dollar trip

[Anonymous No.9545240]

>>9542868

Experiments aren't necessary. Don't mention Mach Effect thrusters either. I don't give a fuck what all those experiments showed, they're either systematic errors or charlatans playing on the credulous.

[Anonymous No.9545532]

>>9545240
>I don't give a fuck what all those experiments showed, they're either systematic errors or charlatans playing on the credulous

And I totally agree with you that probably is in fact the case. However I would like a conclusive experiment to DISPROVE it before I make any prior judgements, you know, science and shit.

[Anonymous No.9545779]

Hibernation could solve food and water issue on long travel.
https://qz.com/889581/hi-tech-pods-that-allow-human-beings-to-hibernate-for-long-distance-space-travel-are-about-to-become-a-reality/

[Anonymous No.9545787]

>>9540973
sweet video. but is it even possible to create oceans on mars, with it's weak magnetosphere?

[Anonymous No.9546078]

>>9545787
A station at L1 producing a magnetic field would shield it