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Comment by tsaprailis | Hacker News Reader

So the key takeaway for me today compared to 1 year ago, is that Elon has put a lot of thought on how to make this plan economically viable compared to just the vision last year. Multiple potential streams of revenue:

- Government/intragovernment contracts to cleanup space debris.

- Government/Private satellite launches.

- Earth to earth transportation which Elon announced on Instagram that the cost would be comparable to an economy fare. https://www.instagram.com/p/BZnVfWxgdLe/

- Transporting gear for ESA's moon base plan http://www.esa.int/About_Us/Ministerial_Council_2016/Moon_Vi....

- Transporting Government/Private equipment to Mars.

This is very much a realistic business approach compared to last year's vision presentation.

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I think the key is that this rocket will replace the F9/FH/Dragon architecture rather then being a separate line of development.

It's key, and it's clever design. Basically space shuttle next edition with the booster on the bottom rather than it being strapped to the side of it and where the booster is reusable. It's a two-part vehicle: booster/shuttle.

The original space shuttle had a 40% vehicular failure rate. The SpaceX Shuttle need to have commercial airline rates of failure and reusability. That's a big step up.

You know the way we still have 80 column terminals because punch cards had 80 units?

The decisions SpaceX make now are going to become space-faring standards for decades if not centuries to come.

The Shuttle just made the mistake to not be a fully two stage system, it was a strange hybrid.

SpaceX also figured out that vertical landing had many advantages compared to a plane.

Totally. Because NASA, ESA, and others use public money there was less (or little to no) incentive to strive for reusability.

Well, NASA had the right initial idea with the Shuttle, it just that their execution and then evolution of the idea was a total disaster.

To frame in a comment we often hear around here: if you don't control your funding, you don't control your destiny.

Building anything for the US government that's big enough and has potential military applications is virtually inviting them (and the large project procurement morass they bring) to become involved.

The Soviet Buran shuttle had the right idea. It didn't have main engines and was launched with the Energia rocket, which could be used independently with other cargo as well. Also, it was capable of fully automated landing, unlike the American Shuttle

It still had the combination of being both human and cargo at once. The BFR would have a cargo, crew and tanker version.

What do you mean by "40% vehicular failure rate"?

Could you please give some insights / sources?

Out of five vehicles built, two have been lost. I think you can find sources on those two incidents easily enough.

According to wikipedia, there were 135 shuttle missions. So, a 1.481% failure rate in case anyone was wondering.

From a commercial, ROI standpoint, having %40 of your hardware eventually destroy itself is bad news. Especially since each time your whole enterprise stops for years until you find out what went wrong and fix it.

What?! All hardware failes eventually. If you get an average of 27 of flights from a single rocket, I'd say that's outstandingly good news!

Nobody is arguing that hardware doesn't eventually fail so I don't know why you mention that.

False. It's not outstandingly good news, not if we want to become multi-planetary in short order. We need to get to better than commercial airliner standards quickly.

It turns the BFR from an aspirational battlestar into the DC-3 of space: go anywhere and earn a buck doing it.

The other major thing was that companies could launch much bigger satellites where Space X would have no competition

I'd be curious how many large diameter applications there are. Physically-contrained uses (mirrors & EM dishes), but do those make up that much of the market? And does it make that much of a difference?

Right, plus 100% reusability and therefore cheaper per-launch cost than where SpaceX is now.

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