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Comment by CydeWeys | Hacker News Reader

I'm so thankful that, thanks to SpaceX, I may finally get a taste of what living through the first Moon landing would've been like.

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Its certainly pretty amazing. But the moon landing was likely to be something just totally different: I can't even imagine just how many things could have gone wrong with the technology then, how precise everything had to be in order to take people to the moon and bring them back. The kind of expertise, testing etc. required for such an absolutely critical task.... blows my mind. e.g. they only had one shot at it; they had to get it right the first time; they only had the primitive computing and communication technologies of their era etc.

Having stayed up nights to fix some critical production outages, I've felt the stress of having a company's fate hang in your hands. Cant even imagine what it would've been like to be in the Control center for the moon landing; having the entire world watching ...

You mean the hollywood stage ? must have been quite chill.

sarcasm aside it's true that it was sooooo impressive. I visited NASA last year and they have a way of presenting the space race as a human achievement that brings out many emotions of pride even as a foreigner.

They dug up some of the speechwriter's letters a while back for if things went wrong, some pretty sobering stuff.

https://www.space.com/7011-president-nixon-prepared-apollo-d...

Those were written by William Safire, who's to speech writing what Mozart was to composing music. Previous HN discussion of what's been called the greatest speech never given here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14064103

The full set of prepared speeches can be found here:

https://m.xkcd.com/1484/

I read an article (blogpost?) by one of the Apollo programmers who presented a very elaborate argument saying that the Apollo mission would have ended in disaster if not for one very specific code change that happened by accident.

Sadly I haven't been able to find it again for the last year or two, but if anyone knows what I'm talking about I'd be grateful.

https://www.doneyles.com/LM/Tales.html

All of my upvotes, I regret I have but one to give.

Thanks! Also HN-based mechanical Turk search engine for the win.

> they had to get it right the first time;

They have time. They are doing and have done a lot of test flights with no humans aboard

It is different not only on a technical level, but culturally as well. I don't think the entire country is rooting for SpaceX as representative of the group. Instead, it's Elon's company. If they get to the moon... good for Elon.

I think that's most likely just you projecting your own views. See people's reactions to their launches. YouTube is the home to some of the most antagonistic commentary, yet check out the comments to the Falcon Heavy Launch. If you can make YouTube look like a great group of enthusiastic, optimistic, unified aspirants - then it's safe to say they're already bringing the world like nothing before. And that's with little more than the launch of a special rocket. When SpaceX is putting people on another planet, I think we will have entered into the beginning of a new era in humanity.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSwFU6tY1c

The whole world is rooting in favor of human achievements in space travel. Look at the reaction to the first Moon landings.

I'm glad you are looking forward to such an event, but I doubt it will be very comparable to what the moon landing felt like. About the only similarity would be the fact of space travel + other planet(oid).

The pure risk, in both technological and human terms, the sheer number of things that had never been done before at all, the extent to which so many people didn't think it could be done, the utter shock of watching it live when there was no such thing as significant live coverage, won't be re-created in my opinion.

Just like it is hard today to understand just how shocking Orson Welle's head projected to enormous size on a movie screen saying "Rosebud" was in a movie theater - something people had never seen at that scale before - it will be hard to understand how shocking and amazing the moon landing was when looked at by near-future sensibilities.

I disagree. I think that landing on Mars for the first time will be more awe-inspiring and impressive than landing on the Moon for the first time was. In a lot of ways the Moon is just a dead end, equivalent to first making landfall on a barren island devoid of fresh water in the middle of the sea. Landing on Mars will be like making it to the Americas for the first time.

How old were you during the moon landing? Where did you watch it?

Will you? What would the comparable event be? Landing on Mars, maybe. SpaceX seems a little more commercially orientated than that.

Landing on Mars is pretty much the entire reason they exist.

What is the evidence of that, aside from “stuff Musk says” of course? Everything they do seems geared to commercial launches, which make sense, and stands to open up LEO enormously. I’m not seeing a realistic path to Mars outside of verbiage, while there is clearly amazing progress made in less expensive commercial launches.

They’re pouring almost all of their R&D effort into a massive rocket that only really makes sense if you want to go to Mars. BFR is absurd overkill for anything related to commercial LEO.

My statement also has another meaning: SpaceX was founded after Musk tried and failed to purchase a Russian rocket to land a greenhouse on Mars as a stunt.

Are you kidding? It’s expected to replace the Falcon Heavy for LEO launches and further bring down the $/kg for launches. To say it only makes sense for Mars goes against both common sense, and SpaceX’s own claims.

From Wikipedia:

BFR is planned to execute five diverse flight use cases:[75][5]

legacy Earth-orbit satellite delivery market

long-duration spaceflights in the cislunar region

Mars transportation, both as cargo ships as well as passenger-carrying transport

long-duration flights to the outer planets, for cargo and astronauts[76]

commercial passenger travel on Earth, competing with long-range aircraft[77]

Musk and Shotwell have touted the ability of BFR to carry passengers on suborbital flights between any two points on Earth in under one hour.[62][78]

Launching sattelites and ferrying people are things they can actually do alone, while the rest is very much a pipe dream requiring massive hpthird party investment. Again, putting aside “stuff Musk says” you’re left with strong commercial applications for BFR that have nothing to do with Mars. While it could be used for Mars, SpaceX has no plans to make that happen and acknowledged the vast amount of third party effort required.

See:

In July 2017, Musk indicated that the architecture had "evolved quite a bit" since the 2016 articulation of the Mars architecture. A key driver of the updated architecture was to be making the system useful for substantial Earth-orbit and cislunar launches so that the system might pay for itself, in part, through economic spaceflight activities in the near-Earth space zone.[49]

BFR is planned to execute five diverse flight use cases:[75][5]

legacy Earth-orbit satellite delivery market long-duration spaceflights in the cislunar region Mars transportation, both as cargo ships as well as passenger-carrying transport long-duration flights to the outer planets, for cargo and astronauts[76] commercial passenger travel on Earth, competing with long-range aircraft[77] Musk and Shotwell have touted the ability of BFR to carry passengers on suborbital flights between any two points on Earth in under one hour.[62][78]

Finally

SpaceX have indicated that they only intend to create the transport system to Mars, and that other aspects of colonization (habitats, mining, etc.) will need to be contributed by third parties.[28] A successful colonization would ultimately involve many more economic actors—whether individuals, companies, or governments—to facilitate the growth of the human presence on Mars over many decades.[29][30][31][5][32] Work contributed by others will allow colonization to progress far beyond what SpaceX projects to build alone.[24]

Everything here is completely consistent with what Musk has been saying from day one - he wants to open up Mars to humanity, not to colonize it by himself.

As for BFR, so sure, they found some extra uses after reviewing newest design. They have to earn the money for the Mars mission. But the story has been completely transparent from day one - SpaceX is means to an end, to get people to Mars. All their developments - from reusable launches to BFR - are directly in line with this goal. If Musk was in for the money, there are many easier ways for a person with his resources to multiply their wealth.

When you see a group of people that claim to pursue a particular goal, and then spend a decade doing exactly that, you should consider giving them the benefit of the doubt and assume they might be actually honest about it.

It depends on how wealthy you want to be. If you want a few billion, no doubt. I’d you want Bezos money... much harder. If you want to be the first trillionaire, the equivalent of temple railroad barons for space? No, this is pretty much it. He already hit the first mark, and I think he’s aiming for the third with the second along the way. I also think he likes rocketry and being seen as a visionary and a hero, and PayPal money wasn’t going to get him any of that. He’s clearly very into risky endeavors and relentless self-promotion; his cult of personality didn’t build itself. He also clearly likes to make money, and win against the odds.

I think if you look for the intersection of all of his more obvious needs and desires SpaceX makes sense in the commercial sense.

I was thinking of various replies to this, but then I realized I don’t really want to have a conversation with someone who starts their comment with “Are you kidding?” Suffice to say that if you wanted to build a rocket to launch satellites as cheaply as possible, the result wouldn’t be an A380-sized spaceship with enough living space for a hundred people.

At the risk of sounding like someone you might not want to have a conversation with, forgive me but I must ask, what the hell are you talking about?

I doubt BFR even exists outside of graphics renditions. You shouldn't believe everything Elon says, given that he is obviously biased towards his company and has a vested interest in generating hype for it. And people for some reason lap it up no matter how unreasonable and utterly idiotic his claims. Don't forget, Elon's credibility is at an all time low. SpaceX has yet to put a man or woman on ISS or even LEO. Mars colonization is well beyond their technical capabilities even if there is a market for it. No matter how much Elon may want it. Wishing something to be true doesn't magically make it true, otherwise Carmen Electra would be my wife right now.

NASA for example didn't start by putting a man on the moon. Space exploration is a dangerous, slow, expensive, stepwise process. They did mercury, gemini, and then finally Apollo. And even before landing on the moon there were many flights prior to that. Some were on earth, testing the capabilities of the LEM in LEO, some were on the ground, and some were in lunar orbit like Apollo 8. We are nowhere near the technical capabilities of Mars colonization and if Elon implies that we are, ask for hard evidence of the capabilities of his technology rather than just drinking the Kool aid. Having a great vision doesn't mean you can execute on it.

> And even before landing on the moon there were many flights prior to that.

And SpaceX can (and does!) use the knowledge from all those missions, including the various rovers and other Mars missions.

That's partially a reason why SpaceX can work at all. They have access to all the knowledge that NASA and ESA spent billions and billions of dollars on, and the flexibility of being private and not bound to usual molasses-slow government processes as well as changing administrations with changing desires.

SpaceX as a result has both a higher rate of development and higher focus, as they can keep R&D/construction/ops concentrated and not spread around the whole US for "political" (aka senator money coffers) reasons. NASA always has to take politics into account, SpaceX can freely allocate funds wherever they believe is best for progress.

You are absolutely correct in that SpaceX has access to tons of research conducted by NASA/ESA and other space agencies. However, BFS is fundamentally different than what Apollo did. Arguably, developing a rocket capable of providing the required amount of delta-v to achieve free return trajectory around the moon or Mars is the easy part in a crewed mission. Hell, the BFR in the proposed specs is only slightly stronger than Saturn V and that was half a century ago. The hardest part is man rating the whole thing. That takes a lot of time.

Seriously? 61.8MN is just “slightly stronger” than 35.1MN? I guess that no one would call something almost twice as powerful “slightly stronger”, but looking at your other comments you are here just to spread misinformation about space x.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BFR_(rocket) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V

You realize that BFR is much heavier than the Saturn V stack, right? The thrust means nothing. Look at the effective payload weight. Yes the thrust is higher, but it weighs nearly 1.5 times more so it can't haul as much payload.

Notice how the payload to LEO is less than the Saturn V. I am not spreading misinformation. I'm here to educate.

For an apples to apples comparison, you need to include the BFS itself in the “mass to orbit” number. Or subtract the mass of Apollo from Saturn V’s.

The payload is such an interesting comparison that there is a word for it.

The wikipedia articles give 100,000 kg for the BFR and 140,000 kg for the Saturn V.

For hundreds of missions, the BFR strategy of refueling to leave orbit probably makes sense, but it's pretty clear which rocket puts more payload in a 90 mile orbit, a very direct comparison of launch capability.

And of course, BFR may exceed projections (or fail to meet them).

Wikipedia’s number for the BFR is payload other than the BFS itself. BFR puts up a gigantic spaceship, and a huge payload inside it. Saturn V did not do this. Apollo (or Skylab) was the payload.

The BFS is part of the whole stack, it is the second stage. It is unclear because of lack of technical specification from SpaceX but at the moment it seems unlikely that the BFB will fly without the BFS. So you can't look at the BFS as a separate thing as you are implying, it is a core part of the architecture. It'd be like saying that the Saturn V can haul x amount of payload in addition to its second stage.

You can’t ignore it either. The BFS isn’t a useless hunk of metal once it’s in orbit, it’s still very useful.

Consider a past example. The Space Shuttle’s payload to orbit was many times smaller than Saturn V’s. Yet the Shuttle could do missions over two weeks long with seven crew, far more than Apollo could. How is that possible? Because the orbiter didn’t count as part of the “payload”.

BFR is going to send 8 people on a trip around the moon. Saturn V couldn’t do that, even though it could orbit more “payload.”

It all depends on the mission. If you just want to put satellites in orbit, Saturn V is more capable (ignoring costs). If you want to send people somewhere, BFR is way more capable. BFR can put a lot more mass into orbit, it’s just that a lot of that mass is taken up by mandatory stuff. If that stuff is useful for you then it should count. If it’s not then it shouldn’t.

And that brings us back to my original point, way up there, that BFR is major overkill for a satellite launcher, but makes perfect sense for a Mars mission.

The trip to the moon is great, but it's 2 launches.

Is it? The mission profile shown during the presentation makes no mention of that. It also shows only 30 minutes in orbit before the lunar injection burn, which wouldn’t be enough to refuel from a tanker.

Saturn V and Apollo were designed for a very specific purpose. And so the CSM could only sustain the crew for the trip to the moon. The 310k lbs payload did not include the CSM and LEM. In theory the Saturn V booster could haul up a BFS style ship if such a thing existed.

“The 310k lbs payload did not include the CSM and LEM.”

Are you saying the Saturn V was able to lift 310k lbs plus the CSM and LEM? I’m pretty sure that not true.

Saturn V was a general purpose rocket. It wasn’t tied to Apollo, as evidenced by Skylab. It just worked out that nobody found a cost-effective use for it beyond Apollo and Skylab.

Sorry for the confusion, I meant that the Saturn V could haul 310k lbs and the payload didn't necessarily need be the CSM/LEM. So in theory they could attach a dragon/bfs type thing as payload.

I see. You’re right that it could. It wouldn’t be as good, though, since the BFR’s total mass to orbit is greater. That’s why I’m saying you need to take BFS into account and not just look at “payload” numbers.

And BFR will launch 100 Mg for a tiny fraction of the price of the 140 Mg that the Saturn V could do. Add to that the fact that the plan is for two BFRs to dock in LEO and shuttle across supplies and you end up with larger mission capacity, still at a fraction of the price.

Reusability is the huge game-changer here. When you're reusable, the max payload per launch doesn't matter nearly as much since it's not a one-shot deal.

I have no stock in the proposed cost savings until it actually becomes a reality. What people don't realize is that reusability isn't as straightforward as SpaceX makes it seem. A used stage has to be taken apart, inspected and refurbished. It is unlikely that SpaceX saves any money on reusing their stages, they might even be losing money.

https://spacenews.com/spacexs-reusable-falcon-9-what-are-the...

They have stated that their very first reused booster cost less than half as much money to refurbish than it cost to build a new one.

That was quite a while ago, with a much less advanced reusable design. The current version of the Falcon 9 incorporates lessons learned from tearing down and reflying the earlier units, so should be much cheaper. Even if you think there are no possible improvements, it can’t possibly get worse than a 50% savings.

Unless you’re proposing that they’re lying out their asses?

The article you link is 2 years old.

The price difference is now known: F9 to GTO is $50mm using a reused-and-recoverable booster, compared to the old list price of $62mm.

The cost difference is fully known inside of SpaceX; their public statements disagree with your speculation.

You realise that the overwhelming majority of the weight in a rocket is fuel, right? The empty mass of the Saturn V first stage is 130000kg while its gross mass is 20 times more. Obviously a rocket designed to go to mars needs to carry much more fuel. The strength of a rocket is given by the lifting force that it can produce and 61.8MN of BFR is almost double the 35MN of Saturn V. And if we look at the second stages the 14MN of BFR are almost triple the 5.1MN of Saturn V. You are not educating at all, you are knowingly and deliberately spreading lies and misinformation. The pure and cold numbers that I posted instead are facts.

Look buddy, you are wrong. No one looks at the thrust values to determine the strength of the rocket besides you. A rocket's job is to haul payload and so the strength of a rocket is determined by how much payload it can haul not max thrust values. As you can clearly see in this case, despite having more thrust the BFR can haul less payload to LEO than the Saturn V.

All you did in your last comment is literally repeat what you said earlier. The "pure and cold numbers" you posted shows how ignorant you are about spaceflight. Come up with something original and present an argument for why the thrust is a better and more useful metric for measuring the strength of a rocket than its payload capacity.

It's useless to discuss with you, you are just wasting my time. The numbers are there, the BFR lifting force is almost double Saturn V and the total mass that BFR is bringing in orbit is double the one that Saturn V brought in orbit. Please, continue with your non-sense if you like, I think that it's clear to everyone who is spreading mis-information and ignorance saying the BFR is only slightly more powerful than Saturn V.

I'm not the one spreading nonsense. You are wrong 100% and repeating yourself 3 times isn't going to change that.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BFR_(rocket) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V

The number you are looking for is "payload to LEO". For Saturn that number is 310k lbs and for BFR it is 220k lbs. 310k is bigger than 220k.

“I doubt BFR even exists outside of graphics renditions.”

They already have sections of BFS built. They showed a photo of that Japanese guy who bought a trip around the moon standing in one. Gwynne Shotwell (the sensible one, not Musk) is talking about doing test hops late next year. They’ve been test-firing the engine for a long time. So: what the hell are you talking about?

Where's your proof?

You can find videos documenting these things on the spacex website in the presentation that was given announcing the first commercial trip around the moon. You can also find videos documenting the firing of the engine in earlier tests years back in videos introducing the BFR and ITS.

Also, since you seem extremely ignorant of SpaceX, I also recommend you watch videos documenting the landing of the two boosters of Falcon Heavy, so that you might better understand the sense of optimism which the company's accomplishments have generated. It is, to put it lightly, incredibly inspiring.

If you're talking about this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zu7WJD8vpAQ

Then you're proving my point that the rocket doesn't exist outside of CGI. Musk himself said that they haven't even built out the prototype fairings yet. The engine has been fired for 1200 seconds as per Wikipedia but I can't find a source for it.

Also, this isn't technical documentation, it's the sort of thing that'd impress people ignorant about the complexities of spaceflight. You are wrong that I am ignorant of SpaceX. I watched the landing of the Falcon Heavy boosters and even saw the core crash into the ocean on the day of the test launch.

Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to be a debbie downer. However, I am a skeptic and Musk continues to over promise and under deliver across all of his ventures. He continuously makes promises he won't be able to fulfill. Like this one:

"We will make one of the mini-sub/pod going all the way to Cave 5 no problemo. Sorry pedo guy, you really did ask for it"

I love spaceflight and have loved it all my life. I think the hype that SpaceX has generated is amazing. But that doesn't mean that we should suddenly throw aside our thinking hats. Hype generated on the basis of falsehoods is wrong.

When I read what you wrote, it appears to me that you are confused as to what we were talking about. You asked for proof of a thing that was stated. I gave it. We were talking about proof of the rocket being more than just a render, with some parts having been under construction and testing. Please re-read the thread context.

Re-reading my response, I think I didn't give you enough credit for being genuine. Here is a more direct link to the proof. I can understand how you would miss it. The presentation is very long. https://youtu.be/zu7WJD8vpAQ?t=2679

https://newatlas.com/spacex-yusaku-maezawa-moon-bfr/56373/

This is going a little too far into conspiracy theory territory, don't you think? SpaceX already has successful launches of the Falcon 1, Falcon 9, and Falcon Heavy behind them. By their own admission, the majority of their R&D effort is going into BFR, as Falcon 9 Block 5 is essentially a complete platform and Falcon Heavy is a bit of a technological dead-end that will be obsoleted by BFR.

You can argue that they won't meet their timelines, as they haven't before, but what is the specific accusation here? That it's all lies or some grand cover-up? I don't understand this level of skepticism for a company with a proven track record of results. Maybe you're letting your personal dislike of Elon Musk cloud your judgment too much?

This is one of those threads that I hope I never lose track of, so that I can re-read it in a few years and laugh.

Thank you, from future me.

Here's hoping the same. I wish and hope Mars colonization happens in my lifetime. Of course I wish that. You should consider bookmarking the thread.

The irony of course is that all participants here feel the same, but with different conclusions. It’s a shame thst we couldn’t have a functional conversation without derailing into what amounts to faith based arguments, but there we are. In a few years let’s have some fun looking back on this, and while we’re at it here’s another for the bin: Hyperloop as a vactrain will never happen.

I'm sorry but you are embracing yourself.

I seem to have really strong opinion on things that you really don't seem to know much about.

> I doubt BFR even exists outside of graphics renditions.

We know what exists and what doesn't. The most important thing about a rocket is a new engine, and they have showed videos of it firing 3 years ago and have since then shown many more videos of it firing for different duration and so on.

They have bought a factor and they have shown of structural tools to build the frame of the BFR. They have started to construct sections. The have already build and tested a carbon fiber tank for example.

So, yes, it doesn't exists yet but they are very clearly building it and working on it right now.

Its not some hype where everybody just believes Elon because he has a mindspell on everybody, they are actually showing of hardware all the time.

> Mars colonization is well beyond their technical capabilities even if there is a market for it.

Mars colonization is incredibly difficult and of course it is outside their technical capability, and everybody including Elon would agree with you. The important point is that they are working towards resolving this, unlike most people.

> NASA for example didn't start by putting a man on the moon. Space exploration is a dangerous, slow, expensive, stepwise process. They did mercury, gemini, and then finally Apollo.

Yes and SpaceX started with the Falcon 1, then the Falcon 9, then Falcon Heavy and then BFR.

The also started with Dragon 1 then made that reusable, now they are building Dragon 2 (Cargo and Crew) and they will fly those for a couple of years. And they are working on the next generation after that with the BFS.

They will start by sending humans to the space station, then around the moon and probably do some other stuff before sending people to mars.

Your narrative that they are ignorant and just make a mars shot is false, the have a very deliberate and systematic growth in their capabilities.

Raptor:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7kqFt3nID4

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb2IEU1taFs

- https://youtu.be/zu7WJD8vpAQ?t=45m30s

Tank:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93rBH4Ysb8Y

Structure:

- https://youtu.be/zu7WJD8vpAQ?t=44m40s

Your constant claims that everybody is just "drinking the Kool aid" and your the only one smart enough to understand what is really going on is just false. I and others understand exactly what SpaceX current capabilities are, what they are doing in the short term and what they are devloping in the longer term. That's why we are exited.

> I'm sorry but you are embracing yourself.

I do love embracing myself.

In all seriousness, I am already aware and have seen everything you have posted. Nothing that I have said is wrong.

> So, yes, it doesn't exists yet but they are very clearly building it and working on it right now.

It is ingenuine at best to post things like this on twitter: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1043250540379926528

When they don't even have a launch vehicle yet, let alone a man-rated launch vehicle. Not to mention the other billion challenges in a crewed 7+ month flight. These are some of the challenges in human certification: https://nodis3.gsfc.nasa.gov/npg_img/N_PR_8705_002C_/N_PR_87...

Hell, forget BFS, Dragon2 isn't even human certified and isn't expected to be human certified till 2020 as per the U.S government.

> Your constant claims that everybody is just "drinking the Kool aid" and your the only one smart enough to understand what is really going on is just false. I and others understand exactly what SpaceX current capabilities are, what they are doing in the short term and what they are devloping in the longer term. That's why we are exited.

I am not the only skeptic calling bullshit on Elon's premature announcements. Also, just look at some of the comments in response to his twitter announcement about Mars base alpha.

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2016/9/30/13099898/ma...

BTW, I think you're the one "embracing" yourself with the number of typos in your comment.

First of all, human certification is only if you want to fly with NASA. If Elon does not want to fly NASA he doesn't have to human rate it.

The mars picture was not an 'announcements', it just a concept.

Clearly you haven't been following along, but NASA is SpaceX's primary customer. If SpaceX does not man rate the BFR, they'll go bankrupt real quick.

Additionally, spaceflight is under the domain of the FAA so there are a crap of regulations there that they have to be compliant with even if they aren't flying with NASA.

https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/as...

NASA has not booked or given any indication that they care about BFR specially for humans.

There is a large difference between being the primary costumer of SpaceX and BFR.

If NASA wants to fly Astronauts on BFR, then SpaceX can tell them that they have to pay for human rating. SpaceX development targets that, they just don't go threw all the paper work.

Also, the reality is that this 'human rating' is really not clear at all. NASA has no clue how to human rate anything because nothing was really human rated according to the NASA guidelines. They specially have no idea how to human rate a shit that goes to Mars. Every-time they do a rating it is a new and different process.

The problem with this process is well known in the industry. The reality is SpaceX simply couldn't develop it fully human rated because its not clear what that even means. All they can do is build the best possible ship and see where the dice fall.

Living space for a hundred people? Where are you getting that? Space for a 100 people on one of their planned 1hour trips to anywhere on the globe, sure, but that’s decidedly not living space. Again, putting side the hype so many of you are desperate for, the use case is to bring the launch costs even further down below the Falcon Heavy, by bundling multiple payloads. Skimming some money with what would be astronomically expensive commuter flights that the private jet set will be thrilled to pay? Sure. A trip to Mars?

Well, thst requires a lot more than big rockets, and all of the downvotes and petulance in the world can’t change that. On the bright side, time will tell, and I’ll be sure to save this thread for future enjoyment. BFR, if it’s ever completed (it very well may be, it might not be) will be used almost exclusively for LEO; satellite launches, cargo runs, and ferrying people. The technology for people on Mars simply doesn’t exist yet, and trillions of R&D SpaceX has declared zero interest in, and no one else is doing is on the road to Mars.

For a group of supposed empiricists, rationality and skepticism seems to die where this topic is concerned. It’s frankly annoying.

Thanks for confirming that I don’t want to have a conversation with you.

I love this response and I'm stealing it for future use. Thanks.

SpaceX can't grow money on trees, of course the BFR has various commercial uses. The commercial demand for flights to Mars is pretty low, and if they built a vehicle that only makes sense for mars they would have no money left for any investment in Mars (sending colony ships or whatever).

But for getting the most profit out of LEO launches and suborbital passenger trips they could have built a much smaller rocket, slightly bigger than the Falcon Heavy. As $/kg for launches goes down, you expect average payload size to go down, not up (since it makes less sense to pay for overengineered satellites with lots of redundancies).

ha - the opposite, more like! "Overengineering" is what allows payloads to be as light as they are. You spend a fortune squeezing every last gram out of the design because it costs so much to get it up there. Lower launch costs allow heavier (cheaper) stuff to be economical.

BFR is not overkill if you want to launch huge numbers of satellites into LEO. Look at their recent falcon9 multi-satellite per rocket launches for iridium. Now scale that up to 30-40 sats per launch and the second stage is fully resused. Or if you want to launch really gargantuan things into geostationary transfer orbit. Right now the largest satellite that's ever been put in geostationary orbit is about 7000 kilograms. Imagine the transponder capability, and solar panel power generation ability if you were able to launch a 18000 kg satellite into GTO.

It doesn’t matter how many satellites you’re launching, BFS has a lot of stuff on it that you don’t need for satellites. It can get away with that because reusability means it’s still cheap, but if satellite launches were your goal you’d skip the solar panels and living quarters and in-orbit refueling and a bunch of other stuff.

They have announced that there is going to be a cargo-carrying version of the BFR. As I understand it right now there will be:

a) tanker

b) cargo variant

c) passenger variant

all of which share a common first stage.

with (b) and (c) capable of refueling in LEO from the tanker, for the required delta-V for earth escape / transfer orbit to mars.

What does that have to do with "why spacex was founded"? The only person who would know why spacex was founded was the guy would founded it. Elon Musk. The guy said why he founded spacex. What more is there? If you have issues with the progress of achieving the goal. Fine. But that has nothing to do with the founding of the company.

The conversation here is not just about why they were founded, but their current purpose as a company. Why they were founded is, of course, a major driver of that. The BFR's design confirms that this purpose continues.

> BFR is absurd overkill for anything related to commercial LEO.

They thought the 747 was absurd overkill, too. Until it started making huge profits for Boeing for decades.

Boeing made the 747 because Pan Am asked them for an airplane that could carry 400 people. https://www.investors.com/news/management/leaders-and-succes...

Pan Am provided much of the money, too.

"The Great Gamble: The Boeing 747" by Laurence Kuter

> What is the evidence of that, aside from “stuff Musk says” of course?

Shouldn't a statement from the founder of spacex be enough? The guy who founded spacex said he founded spacex to get to mars. What more evidence do you need as to why spacex was founded? What other answer can he give other than what the founder said?

The story about how he went to Moscow to try to buy an ICBM to land a greenhouse on Mars, couldn’t work out a deal, and basically said “I’ll build my own rockets, with blackjack, and hookers” is corroborates by the people who went with him, too.

This is a really bizarre conversation all around.

I just want to say, as an outside observer, that your comments throughout this thread have been awful. You consistently miss other peoples’ point, pick fights, shift the goalposts, and rely on logical fallacies. The people responding to you, while flawed, generally have done so with good faith reasoning and citations.

You seem really out of touch with both the space industry and the social dynamics of this conversation.

Can you elaborate? I honestly don’t see where I’ve done any of that.

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