See Interesting items from Gwynne Shotwell's talk at Stanford tonight • r/spacex
Lots of really interesting info from Gwynne! There was no recording allowed of her talk or the Q&A so everything posted on reddit should be considered as paraphrasing and may not be completely accurate. I put some phrases below in quotes because it seems the redditors wrote them as quotes by bolding them, but perhaps they just intended to emphasize them. So don't take my quote marks literally.
* BFR will be built at a new SpaceX location at the port of Los Angeles "by the water" because it would be too costly to build it in Hawthorne and transport it to the port ($2.5 million cost each time a BFR was moved from Hawthorne to the port). It's just too big for city streets. Long term there will be BFR production facilities next to launch sites.
* FH will fly in December because the 39A pad will be ready then. All the pieces of the first FH are at the cape.
* The Boca Chica launch site that is under construction is "the perfect location for BFR" (to launch from). No other details about Boca Chica.
* The future SpaceX internet satellite constellation is under development and she believes SpaceX can do both: build the BFR and the satellite constellation, with "some creative financing". She pointed out that the global launch market is worth &8 billion annually but the global broadband market is a trillion dollar a year industry, so there is a lot of potential there for profit.
* Crew Dragon will launch next year, first flight will have two astronauts on board.
* On E2E BFR flights and G forces, she said it was being designed for "normal people" to travel on it, and care would be taken to minimize the Gs. Great news.
* "Elon is impatient to get to Mars". The BFR will be capable of Moon missions but it is being designed for Mars and that is the focus. She apparently gave no indication that SpaceX would spend any resources on going to the Moon, but didn't rule out the idea of SpaceX providing transportation to the Moon to entities that would pay for that service.
* "It's no accident that Elon started the Boring Company." Tunnels will be an important part of living on Mars from early on, before surface structures are built.
Lots of really interesting info from Gwynne! There was no recording allowed of her talk or the Q&A so everything posted on reddit should be considered as paraphrasing and may not be completely accurate. I put some phrases below in quotes because it seems the redditors wrote them as quotes by bolding them, but perhaps they just intended to emphasize them. So don't take my quote marks literally.
* BFR will be built at a new SpaceX location at the port of Los Angeles "by the water" because it would be too costly to build it in Hawthorne and transport it to the port ($2.5 million cost each time a BFR was moved from Hawthorne to the port). It's just too big for city streets. Long term there will be BFR production facilities next to launch sites.
* FH will fly in December because the 39A pad will be ready then. All the pieces of the first FH are at the cape.
* The Boca Chica launch site that is under construction is "the perfect location for BFR" (to launch from). No other details about Boca Chica.
* The future SpaceX internet satellite constellation is under development and she believes SpaceX can do both: build the BFR and the satellite constellation, with "some creative financing". She pointed out that the global launch market is worth &8 billion annually but the global broadband market is a trillion dollar a year industry, so there is a lot of potential there for profit.
* Crew Dragon will launch next year, first flight will have two astronauts on board.
* On E2E BFR flights and G forces, she said it was being designed for "normal people" to travel on it, and care would be taken to minimize the Gs. Great news.
* "Elon is impatient to get to Mars". The BFR will be capable of Moon missions but it is being designed for Mars and that is the focus. She apparently gave no indication that SpaceX would spend any resources on going to the Moon, but didn't rule out the idea of SpaceX providing transportation to the Moon to entities that would pay for that service.
* "It's no accident that Elon started the Boring Company." Tunnels will be an important part of living on Mars from early on, before surface structures are built.
