Elon Musk: SpaceX's Mars Rocket Could Fly Short Flights By Next Year

On stage at SXSW, Elon Musk issued yet another incredibly ambitious timeline. During a Q&A session on Sunday, Musk said SpaceX will be ready to fly its Mars rocket in 2019. He said: We are building the first ship, or interplanetary ship, right now, and we'll probably be able to do short flights, short up and down flights, during the first half of next year. Further reading: Fortune.

Comments

"short flights"

[PopeRatzo]

How the fuck is it a "Mars rocket" if it's only doing short flights? It's like calling my '77 Toyota pick-up a "Formula One car" because I can drive it in an oval in the Wal-Mart parking lot.

Musk might as well go all out and call it an "Alpha Centauri rocket".

On the other hand, I saw one of those new Tesla roadsters on Hwy 101 outside of Pismo Beach the other day and it's a very nice-looking little ride. It looks like it would be fun to drive.

Re:"short flights"

[bobbied]

To be fair here.. Musk is describing TESTING of the spacecraft by sending it on short flights, near earth. This makes sense. You crawl, walk and THEN run.

You really don't want to commit a group of people to a year long voyage to Mars and back in an untested spacecraft. You want to make sure the spacecraft isn't going to kill it's occupants because of some unfixable systems failure. So, you test it in orbit, short trips around the moon and THEN commit to a Mars round trip.

Re:"short flights"

[berj]

Easy.. it's the rocket they're building to go to mars. It's not an alpha centauri rocket.. it's a mars rocket. And in order to test it out they will do short flights with it.

So.. they're doing short flights with a mars rocket.

Simple.

Was the Lunar module not a lunar module when it was just sent up to orbit the earth in Apollo 5?

Was the descent stage of the LM not a descent stage because it stayed in lunar orbit during Apollo 8?

Re:"short flights"

[K. S. Kyosuke]

There was no LM on Apollo 8, was it?

Re:"short flights"

[careysub]

Despite the reflex skepticism, this announcement makes perfect sense. The Space X "Mars rocket" ifs the BFR, which standards for (so they say) "Big Falcon Rocket", the first stage of which has 31 engines. Testing that these 31 engines all work together, and testing failure modes, is really important before trying an actual full scale launch.

Re:"short flights"

[ColdWetDog]

Your forgot the David Bowie music video.

Re: "short flights"

[bill_mcgonigle]

This is the BFS ship which will ride on the BFR rocket for Earth to Mars launches, but also able to do SSTO in Mars gravity for the return trip.

They are going to be doing short (2-3 miles up) test SSTO-style launches (and landings) either at Boca Chica or from ship-to-ship by the end of next year. Most of the people who have been working on FH have been reassigned to work on BFR/BFS exclusively.

Re:"short flights"

[Jeremi]

If you really want to be fair, you can say in this case Musk's approach is to crawl, announce that you're going to win the marathon 12 months from now, walk and then run.

FTFY.

Re:"short flights"

[Gavagai80]

He already owns the most powerful rocket on the planet, so he's won a marathon. This is about plans for the next one.

Re:"short flights"

[Anonymous Coward]

The story is irritatingly vague on this point, but a previous comment by Musk makes it clearer:

Will be starting with a full-scale Ship doing short hops of a few hundred kilometers altitude and lateral distance [...] Those are fairly easy on the vehicle, as no heat shield is needed, we can have a large amount of reserve propellant and don't need the high area ratio, deep space Raptor engines.

He's talking about only the upper stage of the BFR - the spaceship part that actually goes to Mars and back - taking off under its own power and doing a little hop through the atmosphere. That's much less ambitious than even the first step you listed, testing in orbit. But it's something fundamental that should be done first, and it's basic enough that it might just be possible on this sort of timeline (within 21 months). Even if the spaceship could lift a few metres off the pad, hover for a few seconds under control, then land softly, that would be a solid result.

Re:"short flights"

[haruchai]

You crawl, walk and THEN run.

If you really want to be fair, you can say in this case Musk's approach is to crawl, announce that you've won a marathon, walk and then run.

No. What he keeps doing is announcing that he's going to win the marathon, setting a record time, in cheaper shoes that perform better then the best from Nike, Asics or Adidas.

Re:"short flights"

[Anonymous Coward]

Aaah internet heroes. Shoot giant rocket into the sky, 'not in the slightest bit impressive'. Don't you just long for the gool ol' days where you could impress people at parties saying you were a rocket scientist.

Re:"short flights"

[berj]

You've got it backwards

Someone's got a formula one car and they're testing it by driving it down a runway and you're jumping up and down saying "How the fuck can you call that a formula one car when you're not racing it in a formula one event?!?"

Re:"short flights"

[R3d M3rcury]

You really don't want to commit a group of people to a year long voyage to Mars and back in an untested spacecraft.

Depends on who the people are.

Re:"short flights"

[Rei]

Even that's going to be extremely difficult. They're taking a huge gamble on carbon fibre tanks here; cryogenics don't play well with composites, and liquid oxygen doesn't play well with organics in general. Past attempts at composite rockets haven't exactly had a spectacular success record. Even prolongued vacuum exposure is challenging with composites. I understand why they want to use them - the strength to weight ratios are just far too tempting to ignore. But... it's not easy.

I do think they'll be able to get it eventually. Even if they have to coat the whole thing in a layer of CVD ceramic or alumium. The sheer size they're going for makes the mass of coatings less significant (r^2 scaling vs. r^3 scaling).

En route to success, however, I expect at least a couple nice fireballs and some corresponding unfortunate setbacks.

Re:"short flights"

[swillden]

En route to success, however, I expect at least a couple nice fireballs and some corresponding unfortunate setbacks.

Yeah, some great YouTube videos are coming :-)

Re:"short flights"

[llamahunter]

I suspect these 'short flights' will be significantly less than even 'sub orbital'... not even making it to space. I'm expecting something like the grasshopper tests. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:"short flights"

[Ol Olsoc]

He already owns the most powerful rocket on the planet, so he's won a marathon. This is about plans for the next one.

I've seen the most powerful Rocket on the planet. It's on display at KSC. The Falcon heavy is 63,800 to LEO. The Rocket I saw could do 140,000 kg to LEO. That would be the Saturn V.

The N1 would have been slightly more thrust in the first stage, allowing for a shorter first stage burn, but had a lower weight to LEO than the Saturn V. Regardless it never had a successful launch.

Where the propaganda that the Falcon Heavy is the most powerful Rocket ever flown comes from is unknown - it is simply not true. The champ is still the Saturn V monster.

Re:"short flights"

[Ol Olsoc]

You crawl, walk and THEN run.

If you really want to be fair, you can say in this case Musk's approach is to crawl, announce that you've won a marathon, walk and then run.

No. What he keeps doing is announcing that he's going to win the marathon, setting a record time, in cheaper shoes that perform better then the best from Nike, Asics or Adidas.

Well, I'm not quite certain of that. I suppose if you hate Musk enough, all of those things have been said.

But Spacex is doing a lot to reduce to practice the business of getting around in Space. That he is a visionary probably seems strange in an age of our heros being Hollywood actors, and billionairs who make money by sitting in a closet with other billionairs and selling their hats to each other.

He's inspired. And just like other inspired people, he's a tad eccentric. Which also is an issue, especially those who demand people conform or be cast out.

But back to the rockets. Yeah, these things are reducing to practice the groundwork that NASA and Roscosmos and the ESA have laid. Look at it like a stable where you bring out th ehorse that is suited for the job. The smaller rockets are suited for a certain weight of payload, and are a lot cheaper. The Falcon 9 heavy will be able to launch heavier yet payloads, and when the Raptor comes along it should be interesting. I'm curious about the BFR system, but seems to be in a state of flux at the moment.

But yeah, if you really need something heavy lifted, you'll want the SLS. But you definitely don't want it for less than balls to the wall heavy lifting work. That was one of the reasons that the Saturn 1B "Milk Stool" was placed on Pad 39 to launch the Skylab and Soyuz Missions after the regular Saturn 1B pads were decommissioned. A Saturn V just had too much shit and git for the payload and orbit.

Each rocket has it's purpose, and you might not like him, but Musk has a vision and is willing to back it up.

Re:"short flights"

[Ol Olsoc]

Most powerful rocket in flight today, not ever. Granted, the ever part is generally left off so people may not know how much more powerful the Saturn 5 and 1 or 2 other rockets were.

I'm a fan of Musk, but if you go to their web page, they conveniently omit the Saturn V in their rocket comparison.

Re:"short flights"

[OneSmartFellow]

But...It's not brain surgery is it ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNPmhBl-8I

Re:"short flights"

[Ol Olsoc]

The Rocket I saw could do 140,000 kg to LEO. That would be the Saturn V.

So, the most powerful rocket on the planet is the one without fuel?

So you don't define a rocket as a rocket unless it is fueled? That's an interesting distinction.

Re:"short flights"

[Immerman]

The Heavy is a launch platform, and is not intended as an interplanetary rocket, certainly not with there-and-back capability, though I think it's supposed to be able to deliver a small enough payload to Pluto (orbit, I presume). Return capability will come with the the BFR. And even the BFR will need refueling facilities on the surface of the destination planet, though the plan is to be able to make it to the moon and back if fully refueled in a high Earth orbit first, which should put most other moons in range too, if transit time isn't an issue so that gravitational slingshots can be used.

And it has been proven useful - it delivered a substantial payload to a beyond-Mars transfer orbit. That the payload was useless is immaterial - the Heavy isn't a space probe, it's a launch system - the quality of its functionality begins and ends with the orbital characteristics it can impart to its payload.

As I see it, the Heavy is a stopgap solution and technology development platform.
- It gives SpaceX the greatest current launch payload available on the planet, by a substantial margin. Good for PR, inspiring complementary businesses (Bigelow Aerospace for example), and helping them get their foot in the door with bureaucracies that have occasional heavy launch needs.
- It also gives SpaceX a platform to refine their multi-core launch technology - because you know that sooner or later they're going to want to do the same thing with the BFR - why have to stop to refuel on the way to the moon? Might even be able to make it to Mars and back without any infrastructure with enough extra engines strapped on - refuel right before landing, and again once back in orbit? Might work, and would make those first few outpost construction landings a lot less do-or-die.

Re:"short flights"

[bobbied]

You really don't want to commit a group of people to a year long voyage to Mars and back in an untested spacecraft.

Depends on who the people are.

Yea, I got to admit that IS true... Problem will getting enough of Congress on board to make a difference...

Re:"short flights"

[Templer421]

There are no launchable Saturn 5s in existence.

But the Falcon Heavy is.

Re:"short flights"

[tim620]

Where the propaganda that the Falcon Heavy is the most powerful Rocket ever flown comes from is unknown - it is simply not true. The champ is still the Saturn V monster.

I've never seen propaganda which states that the Falcon Heavy is the most powerful rocket ever flown. But I have seen propaganda that it is the most powerful operational rocket (i.e. currently being used). SpaceX even states "Only the Saturn V moon rocket, last flown in 1973, delivered more payload to orbit"

Re:"short flights"

[tim620]

I'm a fan of Musk, but if you go to their web page, they conveniently omit the Saturn V in their rocket comparison.

The following is from http://www.spacex.com/falcon-h...

"Only the Saturn V moon rocket, last flown in 1973, delivered more payload to orbit"

Re:"short flights"

[Ol Olsoc]

There are no launchable Saturn 5s in existence.

But the Falcon Heavy is.

So the Saturn 5 never existed? That it is no longer in production means it isn't the most powerful rocket?

A distinction that is meaningless. An unfueled roicket of any type isn't launchable.

Re:"short flights"

[Ol Olsoc]

I've seen the most powerful Rocket on the planet. It's on display at KSC. The Falcon heavy is 63,800 to LEO. The Rocket I saw could do 140,000 kg to LEO. That would be the Saturn V.

Please don't forget Energia. 110,000 kg to LEO.

Roger that one as well.

Re:"short flights"

[Ol Olsoc]

Where the propaganda that the Falcon Heavy is the most powerful Rocket ever flown comes from is unknown - it is simply not true. The champ is still the Saturn V monster.

I've never seen propaganda which states that the Falcon Heavy is the most powerful rocket ever flown. But I have seen propaganda that it is the most powerful operational rocket (i.e. currently being used). SpaceX even states "Only the Saturn V moon rocket, last flown in 1973, delivered more payload to orbit"

You must not have read some of the posts in here claiming just that.

Re:"short flights"

[Ol Olsoc]

The following is from http://www.spacex.com/falcon-h...

"Only the Saturn V moon rocket, last flown in 1973, delivered more payload to orbit"

Scroll down a little on that page. Graphic has Falcon Heavy, Space Shuttle, Proton M, Delta IV Heavy, Titan IV-B, Ariane 5 ES, Atlas V551, the Japanese H2B, and the Chinese LM3B. As I've noted before, the Heavy is going to be a fine launch vehicle. Unfortunately the zealots are like SJW's, unless blind religious support is given, they try to turn you into an enemy of Spacex.

Re:"short flights"

[Ol Olsoc]

And the Falcon Heavy has not done a full burn, putting it in the same category as the Saturn V.

This whole thread is poorly obfuscated unjustified hero worship.

ExactlyP Its like a religion, or at best a stupid Ford Versus Chevy argument.

The Falcon series of Rockets are pretty darn awesome, I'm pissed that I made it down to Florida the freaking day after the freaking thing was freaking launched.

But for cying out loud, people making up stuff like the Saturn 5 rocket in KSC isn't applicable because it isn't fueled and ready to launch and the Falcon 9 is - is just sad.

I love the space rockets, from the workhorse reliable and beautiful Soyuz line, to the Arianes, the Energia, Japanese and Chinese rockets, the Falcons and the coming SLS.

But to date, the monster rocket, the Saturn 5, is the champ of putting weight into orbit.

This isn't love for one over another, just a statement of fact. disclaimer, my two favorite rockets are the beautiful and reliable Soyuz, and the balls to the wall brute monster, the Saturn 5. We can argue about favorites, but it's hard to argue about thrust and weight to LEO or beyond - if that is the purpose - without sounding silly.

Re:"short flights"

[haruchai]

"you might not like him, but Musk has a vision and is willing to back it up"

I like his vision fine. But he's FAR too optimistic about the effort and money required in all his endeavors, ALL of which are very capital-intensive.
By every measure of the available, his businesses are losing a LOT of money.
He's certainly willing to back up a lot of debt. If he hasn't been mining cryptocurrencies all these years, he's a fool.
I don't know and can't predict what SpaceX will accomplish next. I was mesmerized by the Falcon Heavy launch and return.
But then I recalled this was suggested for 2011, then promised for 2013. Hit the landing pads with perfect accuracy; missed the launch date by FIVE years.
Five very expensive years.
Tesla is deeply in the red and may not be able to dig itself out for years - if ever - even if The Boring Company digs a mile deep hole.
We are overdue for a market correction. Musk rescued Solar City by absorbing it into Tesla; he'd better be working on a rescue plan for Tesla.

I don't believe anything Elon says

[NEDHead]

Despite all the evidence to the contrary

Re:I don't believe anything Elon says

[110010001000]

Exactly! People said Musk couldn't build the first electric car: but he did. Then they said he couldn't be the first person to launch satellites to LEO: but he did. The guys is really amazing!

Re:I don't believe anything Elon says

[Bruce Perens]

You are entirely safe to disbelieve anything Elon says about when something will be done. There are also some things he said would be done that were abandoned. No crewed moon orbital mission on Dragon 2 with Falcon 9 Heavy and two rich guys. No powered landing on the ground with Dragon 2 (although IMO it would be possible to have the legs deploy from the side rather than through the heat-shield and have it work).

For all that it's really cool, Falcon 9 Heavy might have been a mistake. And this is from someone who went to the launch and paid $200 for the good tickets. It cost them a great deal to get working, and is destined to be supersceded by their next rocket. We might not see that many of them ever fly.

And I think the cost and time estimates for hyperloop are bonkers, and Boring Co. might also be grossly underestimating cost. If you look at the latest videos about Boring Co., you will notice that it's not hyperloop. Which IMO means it might work :-)

Re:I don't believe anything Elon says

[mrsquid0]

Musk did not build the first electric car. He was not the first person to launch satellites to LEO either.

Re:I don't believe anything Elon says

[93 Escort Wagon]

Musk did not build the first electric car. He was not the first person to launch satellites to LEO either.

He most assuredly was the first person to launch a roadster into space, though!

Re:I don't believe anything Elon says

[Kjella]

Musk did not build the first electric car. He was not the first person to launch satellites to LEO either.

Tip: 110010001000 is the local jester/troll. He's just posing as one of the over-the-top Musk groupies that worship him more than teen girls love Justin Bieber.

Re:I don't believe anything Elon says

[Richard_at_work]

A good indication that the FH doesn't have much backing left internally at SpaceX is the fact that they have yet to develop a payload attach fitting which allows the Falcon Heavy to launch use its potential - at the moment, its using the same one as F9, which only offers slightly more capability than a F9 can handle.

To launch heavier stuff into orbit on a FH, they need a new PAF.

Re:I don't believe anything Elon says

[Bruce Perens]

Not just a fitting, but a new fairing that will hold larger payloads, and the new Fairing 2.0 isn't it. They are waiting for a customer to pay the NRE. If they US Government wants it, they will make it. I don't see who else would go for it. Something like a scale-up of X-37 might require this.

Re:I don't believe anything Elon says

[Kjella]

You are entirely safe to disbelieve anything Elon says about when something will be done. (...) For all that it's really cool, Falcon 9 Heavy might have been a mistake. (...) It cost them a great deal to get working, and is destined to be supersceded by their next rocket. We might not see that many of them ever fly.

Well he can fail at one or the other but not both. If the BFR is on schedule too bad for the FH but great for SpaceX. If the BFR ends up way behind schedule then the FH can still launch anything up to and beyond what other current heavy launchers can and make good money in the process, also good for SpaceX. And it's not certain that the BFR would replace all FH launches if they don't have big enough payloads to justify it or they want a launcher with a longer track record, particularly if you give it some credit for its F9 lineage, shared engines and other components. After all the BFR is an all new design with
a thousand new ways to end in a big f*cking boom and simulations are not perfect.

Re:I don't believe anything Elon says

[Bruce Perens]

You are certainly right about that.

What we're really waiting for is routine launches with thousands-of-launches reuse. Like jet aircraft. If we ever get that, all of today's launch vehicles are toast. It doesn't matter that the rocket is too big, you just put together a big enough manifest for one flight.

Now, Elon thinks BFR might get us there. The jury is still out.

Re:I don't believe anything Elon says

[Gavagai80]

There are no likely LEO payloads for Falcon Heavy. It's meant for geosynchronous orbits, namely being able to deliver satellites to GTO the size of ones previously only possible in LEO.

Re:I don't believe anything Elon says

[110010001000]

The most amusing part is I got +4 Interesting. Pathetic.

Re:I don't believe anything Elon says

[Kjella]

No, kjella is NOT right about this. First off, if you read Fortune, you will see that musk is NOT calling this BFR or even Rocket, but SHIP.

The post I replied to claimed the FH was a bad investment because it'd soon be replaced by its successor. That would be the BFR, as in rocket. Neither of us was talking about the ship in the article.

Once this part is working, then the BFR, or the first stage of the BFR will be developed to send the ship into space.

You think there's a line and SpaceX only works on one project at the time? They're working on it right now, heck the engine development started in 2012.

Windbourne (moderating).

Magic 8-ball says: Outlook not so good.

Re:I don't believe anything Elon says

[Bearhouse]

That's only because I've no mod points today, sucker. Next time you're going down!

Re:I don't believe anything Elon says

[Zorpheus]

For all that it's really cool, Falcon 9 Heavy might have been a mistake. And this is from someone who went to the launch and paid $200 for the good tickets. It cost them a great deal to get working, and is destined to be supersceded by their next rocket. We might not see that many of them ever fly.

Also, the Falcon Heavy is already much more efficient than the Falcon 9. And the BFR is a completely new design, with much more risks and time needed to develop it. Relying fully on the BFR without an intermediate step would be much more risky.

Re:I don't believe anything Elon says

[110010001000]

I don't know why people get upset when I point out how ridiculous the hero worship is. There are ACTUAL heroes out there, but you guys worship people like Musk who create things like Paypal and then spend it all on ego projects (really? the world doesnt need another rocket maker or car manufacturer for the rich)

Re:I don't believe anything Elon says

[Immerman]

My understanding is that the plan is for a BFR launch to be cheaper than an F9 launch in absolute terms - as in launching a tennis ball to LEO will be cheaper in a BFR than an F9, thanks primarily to the fully recoverable second stage. Of course, that's the plan - reality might take a while to catch up.

Re:I don't believe anything Elon says

[Immerman]

I'm not sure it would actually be all that substantially cheaper, but you might be on to something. Fewer engines at least, and the tanks are smaller. Even if it's only 30% cheaper... well that much less loss if it crashes or explodes.

There's also the fact that the booster is completely useless without the Ship, while the Ship has independent market possibilities. The suborbital transportation he's mentioned - for passengers perhaps, but potentially also for cargo to remote locations. If it's supposed to land on Mars or the Moon without infrastructure, then it should be able to land on any solid patch of clear ground here on Earth. If nothing else it could be a good way to start racking up flight hours and landing counts before the main booster is ready.

It'd be an expensive novelty, but maybe not ridiculously so - methane is cheap, and the goal at least is to radically reduce refurbishment costs. And the real win could just be getting the potential into popular consciousness. Give the idea a few extra years to "ferment" before the Ship fleet begins to grow large and reliable (aka cheap) enough to be effectively put to work.

And of course there's the fact that the second stage is in many ways actually the more complicated system - it's got a lot of aerodynamic reentry considerations to worry about, something SpaceX hasn't really dealt with before. They'd probably love to get the kinks worked out of that as much as possible at comparatively low speed before trying a reentry from orbital speeds. And of course there's the fact that they'll be running completely new methane-burning engines, which may have their own kinks to work out that don't show up in static firing tests.

Re:I don't believe anything Elon says

[epiphani]

They've already announced that the next FH launch will be to LEO, with a compliment of several separate satellites. Just because there's not a lot of LEO payloads large enough doesn't mean they can't put a bunch of separate payloads together onto a single launch.

Re:I don't believe anything Elon says

[bloodstar]

To be fair, if that's how the Musk projects remain (expensive ego trips), then I could agree with your assessment. But I think there's reasonable evidence that Musk is working on some serious economies of scale to reduce the per unit cost of stuff. The work on battery production and technology has been a tremendous boon to non rich people. I mean when the price per kWh of storage was (near) $1000 in 2010, $600 in 2013, $540 in 2014, $350 in 2015, and $270 in 2016, that's some serious advancement. The idea that you could create a battery pack (3 kWh just as an example, YMMV) to store energy for a home for under $800 is something that should boggle your mind, considering that the same system would have cost $3000 just 6 years earlier.

I'm not a major fanboy, but I do think there is some good that's come from Musk, even if other projects turn out to be vanity ego trips.

A few laps around the Moon to warm up

[jfdavis668]

Just warming up, some stretches and a few short jogs around the Moon to get ready for the journey.

Impressive

[110010001000]

This is really impressive. Elon really follows through with his promises. He will be the one to get us off this rock stuck in a gravity well!

Re:Impressive

[DontBeAMoran]

He will be the one to get us off this rock stuck in a gravity well!

Wait, is that what we're been saying? No wonder the aliens won't contact us, they think it's a prank!

Living so many years with the fear

[wolfheart111]

Of humanity being wiped out entirely and in so many different ways. No generation before us lived with that fear... I want to be secure in knowing that humanity will survive after I m gone... This is a great step towards quelling my fears Thanks. :)

Re:Living so many years with the fear

[93 Escort Wagon]

Of humanity being wiped out entirely and in so many different ways. No generation before us lived with that fear...

You must be young, given you believe that.

Re:Living so many years with the fear

[wolfheart111]

Thank You. :)

Re:Living so many years with the fear

[HanzoSpam]

Of humanity being wiped out entirely and in so many different ways. No generation before us lived with that fear...

You must be young, given you believe that.

Either that, or he's in his 80s, in which case he really would be a member of the first generation that had to face the possibility of the planet getting wiped out.

Re:Living so many years with the fear

[thinkwaitfast]

Or very small

Re:Living so many years with the fear

[Brett Buck]

Living so many years with the fear of humanity being wiped out entirely and in so many different ways. No generation before us lived with that fear...

Holy crap, you *don't actually believe that* do you? EVERY generation has had the same fear, some far more realistic than now. Basically, you are living in the lap of opulent, bordering on vulgar, luxury and wealth, with minimal actual threat of ANY harm coming to you, or your children. This is reflected by the fact that most of the current supposed threats are strawmen.

      For all intents and purpose, the human race is far and away better off, more safe, and more secure than at any time since h. sapiens evolved.

      You appear to be caught up in the histrionics of the current social environment. Learn some history, for Christ's sake!

Re:Living so many years with the fear

[Anonymous Coward]

During the several major plagues of europe, there was a belief that the apocalypse was upon them. Life on earth was being wiped out by god.

When the Roman empire started to shrink, a similar feeling emerged, thus all the Armageddon cults and why early Christians believed Christ was going to return and fight the final battle within their own lifetime.

Then there's all the great flood myths from around the globe.

There has always been people facing the real belief that they might be or were going to be the last.

Re:A comparison

[DontBeAMoran]

Except that JFK and Obama's projects were by the government.
Trump has nothing to do with that private enterprises do.

Re: A comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF??!!

You are seriously suggesting that SpaceX having a long term goal of reaching mars is all down to Trump? And that they only came to this realisation within the past 1 year??

Re:A comparison

[Gavagai80]

Trump canceled the Mars program and is aiming for the moon. And personally I don't remember when Obama talked about trains, so it clearly wasn't a big deal -- California voters and Jerry Brown are the ones who pushed for trains.

Re:Probably a bit ambitious, but still an improvem

[ColdWetDog]

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."

  -- Douglas Adams

Re:Probably a bit ambitious, but still an improvem

[joh]

The BFR booster should be not that hard, yes. The second stage (the ship) though will be very hard. A fully reusable second stage that is a spaceship at the same time and can go to Mars and land there and be refueled and launch back to Earth and land there and then will be refueled on Earth and fly to Mars again? This is hard. Not impossible, mind you. Just a really tough nut to crack engineering-wise. And certainly nothing like just "scaling up the F9". At least one order of magnitude harder.

It's how you get the next rocket though

[SuperKendall]

For all that it's really cool, Falcon 9 Heavy might have been a mistake. And this is from someone who went to the launch and paid $200 for the good tickets. It cost them a great deal to get working, and is destined to be supersceded by their next rocket. We might not see that many of them ever fly.

The thing is, I'm not sure you can build the BFR without building the Falcon Heavy. It tests a lot of things about combining more engines together, which Musk noted was a lot harder than anticipated just making the FH... I think you need something like the FH doing repeated flights to get enough data to build a BFR that is more like to work than not.

So I don't really see how you can ever call the FH a mistake, even if it is replaced eventually.

Re: It's how you get the next rocket though

[Bruce Perens]

Consider that there was exactly one test burn of F9H, on Pad 39a. They never built a test stand large enough at Macgregor. Then it launched. And certainly they have flight data. So I would call this something that gives them confidence in banking 27 engines, which hasn't been tried since N1. But maybe not something that they had to do before they built BFR.

Re:It's how you get the next rocket though

[painandgreed]

So I don't really see how you can ever call the FH a mistake, even if it is replaced eventually.

I don't know if I would call it a mistake, but IIRC, Musk did comment that they had an unexpected amount of issues dealing with the two strap-on boosters which they thought would be pretty straight forward. He stated if they had known how much trouble they would have had with getting them to work, he would have opted to just go straight to the BFR and ignore the FH.

Not news

[h8sg8s]

Elon said as much at the post FH launch interview. Just because it happens at SXSW doesn't make it news..

Re:Not news

[BlueStrat]

Elon said as much at the post FH launch interview. Just because it happens at SXSW doesn't make it news.

Well it may have first been announced in an interview, but SXSW gives it that hipster-poseur beads-and-pyramids flavor that just screams "News For Nerds, Stuff That Matters".

Strat

Re:A comparison

[kenai_alpenglow]

And we're seeing how that CA supertrain is doing. My money is on the rocket going to Mars before the train makes it anywhere near Los Angeles.

Model 3's?

[DogDude]

Has he been able to deliver even 1% of the Model 3's that people have ordered?

Him saying Mars test trips in 2019 = Mars test trips in 2025 at the earliest.

Re:Model 3's?

[Hodr]

Probably not. But they are shipping. My neighbor has one and now that I have driven both it and the Bolt I am kicking my own arse for not getting in early on the pre-orders. At this point I might as well wait for the 2020 model.

Re:Model 3's?

[q4Fry]

Please elaborate. I am seeing lots of chatter about the Bolt being a decent car and a lot of frustration about the Model 3. I am particularly curious about the instrumentation and controls. It seems to me that a giant touch screen is less desirable than physical, tactile controls while operating a vehicle.

Deleted AI article

[schure]

Why did Slashdot remove the article on Musk's warnings on AI published almost along this one? Where did it go?

Functions of the Heavy

[Immerman]

It seems to me the Heavy accomplishes several things: nothing necessarily indispensable, but potentially worth the investment when combined:

First the non-technical strategic benefits:

It substantially boosts the maximum available launch capacity in existence, exceeding anything available in several decades. Great PR, and probably helps inspire complimentary businesses (Bigelow Aerospace, etc) to be ready to make use of the BFR.

It lets SpaceX start getting considered by the bureaucracies that currently demand heavy launch capacities, so with luck SpaceX will already be at the table ready to offer their bigger/better/cheaper rocket once it's ready to go to work.

So basically it helps create a market for BFR once it gets here. Yeah, it could go around just delivering F9 payloads cheaper, except it's probably going to need a lot of flights under its belt before the up-front costs are paid off.

And then there's the technical benefits - it gives them a test platform for coordinating large numbers of engines using comparatively cheap reused engines, as well as letting them experiment with multi-rocket linkages, which will quite possibly eventually be incorporated into the BFR design if things really take off.

Re:Probably a bit ambitious, but still an improvem

[Immerman]

For all the other qualifiers you added, I'm not sure you actually added much difficulty. Refueling in orbit in preparation for a trip to Mars will be a new challenge. Refueling on Mars though will not be - making the fuel maybe, but that has nothing to do with the rocket. The only difference between refueling on Mars rather than Earth will be dealing with ambient vacuum, and considering the pressure the fuel is already under, I'm not sure that a one-atmosphere difference in ambient pressure is particularly relevant.

As for the heavy reusability though, that is indeed the major challenge, far beyond merely scaling up existing technology. In fact it's arguably a large portion of the reason behind the BFR in its current incarnation: small enough to profitably service Earth-orbital launch needs, and just big enough to get to Mars, and to reduce the relative mass of reentry systems to still allow for respectable payloads. It's a redesign made with business considerations front and center, and its success will ride on them being effective.

Is it truly a mistake if only visible in hindsight

[Immerman]

Another thing to consider is that for most of the time the Falcon Heavy was being designed and built, the plan was seemingly for the BFR to be an interplanetary vessel, too large to satisfy normal launch demands. It's only in the last year or so I think that the plan was scaled down to something that could service existing Earth launch needs as well, when they realized that there was a sweet spot in size that could be cheaper to operate than an F9, while still being able to make it to Mars with a respectable payload. Thus solving the single biggest problem with the original BFR design - how to pay for them.

The Heavy may prove to have been a waste of time and money, but I don't know that I'd call it a mistake - it was simply rendered obsolete by a change in strategic vision. Strategic revisions almost always carry a cost like that, it's just part of the price of not being omniscient. It may even be that lessons learned while developing the Heavy were instrumental in revising the BFR plan, making the Heavy development a valuable investment regardless of the value of the rocket itself..

Re:Less things that can kill you there

[wolfheart111]

There are a couple things that need some serious tech, but once they are solved, It will be a much safer place than Earth. Imagine, no more floods, earthquakes, ect.

Re:Every gen worried about humanity wiped out

[wolfheart111]

No... Maybe themselves... everyone they love... even their country... but not humanity.... that's a different feeling altogether.

Re: Simple facts

[wolfheart111]

Of all of humanity being wiped out... it wasn't until relatively recently that anyone even that it to be possible. Whats hard to understand about that... What a strange anwer you have... odd