Recommended Posts

Space News article repeats

 

The spacecraft could also be used on Earth by itself as a suborbital point-to-point vehicle.

 

Musk stated a trip to anywhere in up to 45 minutes.

 

http://spacenews.com/spacex-unveils-mars-mission-plans/#sthash.3zGtDyKd.dpuf

  • Like 1

Musk said something about this before the Texas legislature in the run-up to Boca Chica being selected. He also hinted at a factory in Brownsville.

 

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/premium/article_b76191f0-851f-11e6-86ff-7fa4f7045d46.html

 

SpaceX’s Boca Chica launch site may some day be a departure point for flights to Mars, according to the company’s founder, Elon Musk, in a presentation Tuesday at the International Aeronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico...



Musk said the initial Mars missions would launch from Cape Canaveral’s 39a launch pad (think Apollo), though more launch sites would eventually be required.

“In the future we expect to add additional launch locations,” he said. “We’re probably adding one on the south coast of Texas.”

That seems vague, though a source familiar with SpaceX’s plans said no other launch location in Texas is under consideration for Mars flights. If SpaceX does ultimately decide to launch Mars missions from Texas, it will be from the Boca Chica site currently under construction, said the source.

  • Like 1

Tim Urban of Wait But Why? has a habit of getting interviews with Musk and breaking new info.

 

His latest is that while the current spaceship desogn would deliver 450-500t of cargo to Mars (one way), there's an evolution path laid out to a goal of delivering 1,000t of cargo in one pop.

 

Yeah, you read that right.

 

One can assume a large part of this would be due to Raptor engine evolition, much as the output of the Merlin has more than doubled Falcon 9's payload to orbit. A vehicle size increase also seems likely.

 

http://waitbutwhy.com/2016/09/spacexs-big-fking-rocket-the-full-story.html

 

Quote

 

>



For comparison, SpaceX’s badass Falcon 9rocket will be able to take about 4 tons of payload to Mars, and the Falcon Heavy—which is about to be today’s most powerful rocket—will be able to take about 13 tons to Mars. Elon believes the BFR will be able to take a few hundred tons of payload to Mars at first and eventually be able to take 1,000 tons. The absurdity of that statistic—that the behemoth Falcon Heavy can only manage a little over 1% of the BFR’s ultimate Mars payload—is pretty hard to absorb.

>

The problem with this comparison, is that the BFR will not be sending 1000 tons to Mars, it will be sending 1000 tons to LEO then sending a few refueling tugs up, then the BFS will take 1000 tons to Mars. If FH did the same thing the number would be much higher. 

  • Like 2

Higher than FH's 13+ tonnes yes, and that too could happen if the Raptor upper stage happens and has tanker capabilities.

 

If I were them If pull the trigger on it, both to try S2 reusability and practice tanker ops.

  • Like 3

The one comment that caught me off guard, was ITS launching from 39A.

 

 I realize that the pad was designed for Saturn and beefed up with a little bit of engineering overkill, but ITS is a monster in it's own right.

 

After thinking about this, my assumption of 39A being planned for Saturn 5 may have been wrong. The pad at 39A may have been designed for Saturn C-8, which was cancelled in favor of Saturn 1, 1B and 5. Saturn C-8 thrust was 13,921,000 pounds-force (61,925 kN) but never built.

 

Thoughts?

I missed the big presentation. :( I was in the hospital fighting for my life by late morning Tuesday ... had emergency surgery today and I'm home recovering now, so this is all new to me.

 

28+ million lbs thrust?! Good GRIEF. That's 10 million over our previous estimates.

 

And that design ... holy crap!

 

Just ... just ... everything about the reveal is blowing my mind. And that's not hard to do with all these pain meds. I need to watch the Presentation itself, so thanks for linking to it folks.

13 minutes ago, Unobscured Vision said:

I missed the big presentation. :( I was in the hospital fighting for my life by late morning Tuesday ... had emergency surgery today and I'm home recovering now, so this is all new to me.

 

28+ million lbs thrust?! Good GRIEF. That's 10 million over our previous estimates.

 

And that design ... holy crap!

 

Just ... just ... everything about the reveal is blowing my mind. And that's not hard to do with all these pain meds. I need to watch the Presentation itself, so thanks for linking to it folks.

Get well and take your time. We'll be going over this stuff for quite some time.  :)

Yeah...follow Drs orders, take your meds, eat well and REST!!

 

In case you don't have it, here are the slides right down to how much the vehicles should cost to manufacture.

 

http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/mars_presentation.pdf

 

BFR booster: $230m
Tanker/cargo: $130m
Heart of Gold-class spaceship: $200m

Edited by DocM
  • Like 2
2 hours ago, Unobscured Vision said:

I missed the big presentation. :( I was in the hospital fighting for my life by late morning Tuesday ... had emergency surgery today and I'm home recovering now, so this is all new to me.

Yikes! Glad you're feeling better, bud! Be well, okay? :)

  • Like 2

Thanks all. :) I'm still catching up with stuff. Didn't watch Elon's Presentation yet. Had to catch up on Classwork last night, and I was pretty wiped out after that. Had appointments to do today. Not sure if I'm gonna be up for reporting back to work tomorrow or not, we'll see how I feel. I'm not bouncing back quite like I'd hoped.

  • Like 2

Assimilation of information complete. :yes: Mind blown.

 

It's the mountain to climb in our lifetime, folks. Like what NASA and USSR-Cosmos (equivalent) was in our Grandparents' Generation on to the Moon Landings and then Salyut and Skylab; to Voyager, Venera, Mir, the Shuttles, Soyuz, HST and ISS and how it was for my Parents' Generation ... this is the mountain for mine and my kids' Generations to climb.

 

We've never had a time like this ... when we actually are in a position to be able to reach out like this into the Solar System.

 

It's going to take all of us, working together. 

 

Let's end the strife and sabotage. Let's end all of the mistrust and hostility. Let's put all of our differences aside.

 

We can do this together. :yes: 

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • It's time to say goodbye to Edge and switch back to Firefox. There's no way to disable the ugly rounded corners that appear everywhere. Not even on the page frame. No one uses screens with rounded corners, you idiots.
    • Being on Github makes it more trustable since I can see the code at any point.
    • Gen Atlas is the next game from Shadow of the Colossus creator, this time with giant robots by Pulasthi Ariyasinghe The mind behind widely well-received games like Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and The Last Guardian, Fumito Ueda, showed up at Summer Game Fest today, and that was to reveal his latest project. Being developed by genDESIGN, Gen Atlas is incoming with what looks to be plenty of mech and robot action. Watch the reveal trailer, which makes not much sense, above. The game will have players waking up on an abandoned planet where deserted facilities and grand designs from the original creators remain. Soon, they will stumble upon a colossal robot, from which players gain access to the power to change the world. "Across an endless expanse of time, the remnants of those forgotten constructs begin to move once more," adds the studio. The gameplay snippets seen in the trailer show the player character climbing giant robots (as expected from the creator), while also controlling these titans somehow as well. This is a fully single-player open-world adventure. “The team and I are grateful to all the fans who’ve been eager to learn more about our game,” says Fumito Ueda, CEO and creative director of genDESIGN. “Their passion and enthusiasm has always motivated and inspired us. We hope to share an experience that inspires moments of quiet wonder and discovery.” Before gaining the name Gen Atlas, Ueda first announced this project back in 2024 with the codename Project Robot. Interestingly, this will be a project being funded and published by Epic Games, which should mean that a Steam release is out of the question. Gen Atlas will be releasing on Epic Games Store, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5. A release date has not been announced just yet.
    • How backwards can you have it? Yes, Linux was gaining because of Linux handhelds and the push for gaming compatibility, but that's not desktop users, it barely converts anyone who owns a SteamDeck, though it helps for those who wanted to do it, but anyways, the AI+RAM debacle helped Linux because people can't easily upgrade their PCs easily and many hate AI so they'd be incentivized to try Linux.
    • 🤦🏻‍♂️ No, expected because 10 EOL
  • Recent Achievements

    • Mentor
      grik went up a rank
      Mentor
    • Dedicated
      JKR earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • One Year In
      CHUNWEI earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Conversation Starter
      FBSPL earned a badge
      Conversation Starter
    • Week One Done
      I2D earned a badge
      Week One Done
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      473
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      269
    3. 3
      Skyfrog
      78
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      68
    5. 5
      +Edouard
      61
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!