Falcon Heavy: manned lunar/Mars possible


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Ho-ly-crap!! The biggest, baddest operatiinal launcher since Saturn V.

53 metric tons to orbit vs the original estimate of 32 metric tons. This is 2x the cargo capacity of the Shuttle and qualifies FH as a Super-Heavy launch vehicle. In his presser Mudk quotes a cost of $1,000/lb, 10% of the $10,000/lb cost of the Shuttle.

That's due to a new version of Merlin-1.

3.8 million lb/ft of thrust, equal to 15 full-throttle 747's.

2 launch manned lunar missions, 4 launch manned Mars missions possible.

Jeeezzzz....

http://www.spacex.com/falcon_heavy.php

Falcon Heavy?s first stage will be made up of three nine-engine cores, which are used as the first stage of the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle. It will be powered by SpaceX?s upgraded Merlin engines currently being tested at the SpaceX rocket development facility in McGregor, Texas. SpaceX has already designed the Falcon 9 first stage to support the additional loads of this configuration, and with common structures and engines for both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, development and operation of the Falcon Heavy will be highly cost-effective.

FALCON HEAVY

Mass to LEO (200 km, 28.5 deg): 53,000 kg (117,000 lb)

Overall Length: 69.2 m (227 ft)

Width (body): 3.6 m (12 ft) x 11.6 m (38 ft)

Width (fairing): 5.2 m (17 ft)

Mass on liftoff: 1,400,000 kg (3,100,000 lb)

Thrust on liftoff: 17 MN (3,800,000 lbf)

>

From another presser

Falcon Heavy will be the first rocket in history to do propellant cross-feed from the side boosters to the center core, thus leaving the center core with most of its propellant after the side boosters separate. The net effect is that Falcon Heavy achieves performance comparable to a three stage rocket, even though only the upper stage is airlit, further improving both payload performance and reliability.? Crossfeed is not required for missions below 100,000 lbs, and can be turned off if desired.

_52018327_falcon_heavy.3k.jpg

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my friend, i have that feeling again...the more i think about it the signs are pointing to us going to Mars circa 2020 and the moon before that...as much as i'm not a fan of rockets, this looks like it could be a good interim fix. get the Russians, Euros and Chinese on board and we have a mega Mars expedition easy. bout freakin time.

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In the press conference Musk said a significant Mars mission could be mounted using 4 FH launches. Just 1 could deliver a sample return mission weighing up to 30,000 lbs.

Falcon X/X Heavy is now redundant - the next step he mentioned would amount to Falcon XX: 150-200 metric tons to orbit (Saturn V was 118 metric tons) - a true BEAST 4x as powerful as FH. Get out your hearing protection :p

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four launches...that's nothing. what the hell are we waiting for? we can def be on Mars by 2020 with this and the Orion crew vehicle.

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Orion or Dragon.

Don't forget that Orion was stripped of its shielding & heavy duty heat shields to lighten it for ISS issions after Constellation was canceled & is no longer beyond LEO capable. All that would have to be reversed.

Dragon is good for use as a Mars return vehicle structurally, needing only upgrades to life support (a commercial item), pilot controls & seats.

Also: with iDragon's propulsive landing/launch escape system (LES) it could do a direct flight to the moon, using the LES to land. Return would be done using another (Dragon-based?) return vehicle, just like most proposed Mars missions. A great practice run for a Mars mission.

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we can do the moon mission you just proposed by 2015 to give the politicos time to mull it over. after all, the changes/mods to Dragon and Orion shouldn't take long or cost that much. if the moon mission goes well, we can be on Mars by 2020. this will give Curiosity several years to scout out more of the terrain and maybe even unearth some of the local microbial life/algae that my common sense tells me we will find on old Barsoom...at any rate, these missions are VERY doable.

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obviously, yes. it's hard to change habits that have formed over millennia, though. we're so tied to Earth, most people instinctively think space exploration and settlement is dangerous, prohibitively expensive or just flat out unnecessary. none of those are true, obviously, relative to the benefits, expanding off-Earth is much safer than crossing an ocean at home, but it's still a tough sell when people are short sighted by definition.

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Republicans are killing space science and democrats are doing jack to try and save it. As much as a LOVE spaceX, it feeds of the teet of uncle sam so with no federal missions/projects stuff like this won't see the light of day as quickly as i would hope. Commercial launching has been on a downward trend as of lately and last i heard most launch companies have a backlog of inventory built already with no missions. In fact, a few even have rockets but no launch facilities because we've stopped maintaining compatible launch sites. I'm guessing some of those delta's will be 184 million dollar museum pieces here soon.

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The only monies SpaceXhas will have taken from the feds has been for COTS, development of Dragon & its test flights, not for engine or rocket development - about 25% of their total outlay & they haven't received it all yet.

As for feeding at NASA's feet technologically - does NASA own rocket tech? If anything SpaceX has modeled their program after Russia's - horizontal payload integration, KISS, multiple thrust chambers, etc.

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The only monies SpaceXhas will have taken from the feds has been for COTS, development of Dragon & its test flights, not for engine or rocket development - about 25% of their total outlay & they haven't received it all yet.

They probably wouldn't have had launches if it weren't for COTS though. That 500 million dollar deal + long term 2 billion or whatever was THE catalyst for spaceX

As for feeding at NASA's feet technologically - does NASA own rocket tech? If anything SpaceX has modeled their program after Russia's - horizontal payload integration, KISS, multiple thrust chambers, etc.

NASA doesn't own any modern rocket tech that i'm aware of. Ironically COTS budgeting prohibits them from using most of the "Demilitarized" technology.. So a minotaur launch is now a bureaucratic mess. That is why i'm "ehhh" with spaceX.. I love what they're doing, but when it comes to tax dollar value we should launch all we can on minotaurs to save tax dollars and reduce costs all the meanwhile supporting spacex.

My opinion mostly stems from my experience in federal projects with large commercial companies. I want to barf when the tax payers are screwed to line the pockets of corporations for the sake of shifting jobs from federal markets to private markets where the end result is an actual net increase in cost. While i KNOW spaceX's goal is to reduce those costs i'm REALLY curious if they can do so with manned missions where the cost isn't necessarily 1k per kg :)

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let's try to stay positive, believe it or not every one of us matters when it comes to these things...the best thing we can do is spread the gospel.

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Still waiting for a moon base from which we can launch to Mars...

That won't be happening for a while :p It would make "hopping to Mars" significantly easier, though.

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New numbers coming in from the NASA engineer frequented forums -

SpaceX is also developing a liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen upper stage called Raptor. As a rule these H2/LOX stages increase mass to orbit by about 20%.

With a standard MVac kerosene/LOX upper stage Falcon Heavy should lift between 53 and 54.6 metric tons, 53 being the published number, so Raptor would up that to between 63.6 and 65.5 metric tons.

If they put a longer tank on it this could easily go into the 70 metric ton range Bigelow established for an empty BA-2100 module.

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seventy tons would be better, it'd cut down on the number of launches needed to assmble a moon base or Mars mission, as well.

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