-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
Nikxice
Active Member
Berger's article asks an interesting question, "it is not clear what is driving the changes to the design—better performance or the need to economize on development costs." Whatever the reasoning, another iteration will likely stretch out the BFR timeline.
Some thoughts on the BFR name change. It's fortunate that picking names is the easy part. Maybe this will turn over again. Starship, Starliner, Starlink, they could all be flying in the face of a confused public sometime over the next year or two. Also, covered yesterday by ars and other media sources...NASA concerned about culture of “inappropriateness” at SpaceX
Coincidence maybe? The double entendre BFR can never be put back on in the box. Not sure, does this fit into the "SpaceX is the frat house" (source quote), "inappropriateness" (Bridenstine's word) category as defined by a PC NASA? My guess is that some at NASA are being pushed by political antagonists to lean on SpaceX and make some noise
. Long term, SpaceX's ability to safely deliver the goods is all that matters.
Some thoughts on the BFR name change. It's fortunate that picking names is the easy part. Maybe this will turn over again. Starship, Starliner, Starlink, they could all be flying in the face of a confused public sometime over the next year or two. Also, covered yesterday by ars and other media sources...NASA concerned about culture of “inappropriateness” at SpaceX
Coincidence maybe? The double entendre BFR can never be put back on in the box. Not sure, does this fit into the "SpaceX is the frat house" (source quote), "inappropriateness" (Bridenstine's word) category as defined by a PC NASA? My guess is that some at NASA are being pushed by political antagonists to lean on SpaceX and make some noise
. Long term, SpaceX's ability to safely deliver the goods is all that matters.
Regardless of exactly why NASA is conducting an intensive safety review, it seems that Elon’s actions on the Joe Rogan show contributed to the review. I hope Elon gets his public persona act together or else he is going to continue to negatively impact SpaceX and Tesla. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problems with what Elon has been doing. But others in society, finance, business and government do.
I mean, that's a bit too tin hat for me, but I'm otherwise on board with safety reviews. IMHO this is closer to a nominally expected exercise, and if "inappropriateness" is in fact a real motivating force from the top its almost certainly about the differences in SpaceX's company culture relative to legacy space and not some headline about weed. American spaceflight (and to a greater if not less meticulous manner, the American space industry) has always done things a specific way, starting with Mercury and honed on Apollo. SpaceX throws significant elements of that "way" out the window; naturally that's going to scare those who believe the legacy way is the only way.
e-FTW
New electron smell
I did link to the article in my post above. Did it now show?
My main concern is the funding, that seems to be a problem at the moment. And it might be affecting the design choices.
SpaceX has started construction of a huge sprung steel tent at Boca Chica, like the one they built in Long Beach (Tesla used a smaller version of the same tent to create a 2nd Model 3 assembly line at the Fremont factory). Based on the photo, I suspect that is only the first section of multiple sections of the tent.
And SpaceX has applied to the FAA for licenses to conduct “hop tests” at Boca Chica. See SpaceX seeks licenses for BFR spaceship prototype hop test campaign
This is the photo shown in the article, credit: NASASpaceflight /u/nomadd
And SpaceX has applied to the FAA for licenses to conduct “hop tests” at Boca Chica. See SpaceX seeks licenses for BFR spaceship prototype hop test campaign
This is the photo shown in the article, credit: NASASpaceflight /u/nomadd
Agree with the first sentence, not the second, at least when it comes to NASA. Politics, pork, and campaign contributions are never to be underestimated.<snip> My guess is that some at NASA are being pushed by political antagonists to lean on SpaceX and make some noise
My question though is: how important is Commercial Crew to SpaceX really? The BFR/BFS will very likely never be approved by NASA for human flight, but they seem the future of SpaceX. If that's the case, then how much should SpaceX care about NASA human rating, or crewed flights to the ISS? SpaceX is going to have to do its own version of human rating if BFR/BFS is actually going to carry humans, so why bother with what NASA wants?
If there really is any point to, or demand for human spaceflight beyond flags and footprints, of which I'm doubtful, SpaceX is likely to dominate it in any case. The ISS isn't going to be around much longer in all probability, so, how many crewed flights to ISS are there going to be in any case?
I would never say “never”. Look forward just two or three years, to a time when the SLS is even farther behind schedule and over budget than it already is but the Starship has reached orbit, with crew, and SpaceX appears on track to carry humans beyond LEO. By that time the pressure on NASA may reach a point where most members of Congress will be persuaded that SpaceX is the best choice to invest NASA’s human spaceflight budget in.
I am not predicting with certainty that is what will happen, only saying it is a very possible scenario. Barring unforeseen disasters with the SpaceX Commercial Crew program, once SpaceX starts flying people to the ISS and using the knowledge gained to successfully fly the Starship with crew, I think it quite possible that NASA will at some point certify the Starship for crew.
. If you don’t believe in SpaceX’s avowed mission, that’s your choice, but then I don’t know why you seem so interested in discussing the SpaceX Starship project. It only exists because Elon is determined to establish the foundation for a self-sustaining human colony on Mars. That is the core of the project.
Don't think NASA has that authority. FAA probably does and the Dept of State might be able to come up with some sort of weird export control reasons, and the FCC of course has control over radio transmissions.
... though NASA might have some control over what gets launched from the pads they lease, which probably only affects 39A
I don't see any point to human spaceflight, at least not at this point, but I see tremendous utility to non-crewed spaceflight. BFR/BFS promises to drastically lower the cost to get stuff, even very big and heavy stuff, into orbit.
That's also why I'm wondering if NASA's approval of Dragon II for Commercial Crew is very important for SpaceX. Elon has said that BFR/BFS launches will be less expensive than F9, so once it's running, BFR/BFS will take over pretty much the entire SpaceX manifest with the single exception of crewed flights, if NASA ever certifies them on F9. Given that, how important is Commercial Crew to SpaceX?
Not NASA. Pretty sure the FAA has some level of control over rocket launches, manned or unmanned, from anywhere in the US.
For SpaceX to launch from Boca Chica they are going to need FAA approval, I think.
Everything SpaceX has accomplished so far is related to dramatically lowering the cost of getting payload out of Earth’s gravity well, because that is the first step towards creating a self-sustaining human colony on Mars.
Yes, the Starship will be able to place a large payload into orbit, and that is the first step towards Mars.
If you don’t see any point to human spaceflight then it follows that you don’t see any point to the reason that SpaceX exists. SpaceX wasn’t started just to move inanimate objects around the solar system.
Some discussion over in "Investors" regarding the difficulties of transporting from Hawthorne to any launch pad an overly-large diameter rocket or spaceship. I'm not a Moderator within the SpaceX sub-forum, so cannot move those posts into here, but I'm not going to inflict further OffTopicness in my sandbox, so -
does anyone have an opinion yay/nay regarding hauling, for example, a BFR from factory to port (thence barge to launch site) by means of a heavy-lift dirigible? Although I'm not a big booster of lighter-than-air transport in general, it seems to me this could be a spectacularly good fit. We have:
1. Low-volume / high-cost item
2. Short-distance / time-flexible window
3. Massively expensive alternatives: prepping road transport involves not only closing of roads, but dismantling of traffic signals, road signs and assorted obstructions. Even the 500-1000 feet to the I-105 interchange...and there are the interstate signs to take down, as well. No, a borehole is not an option!
So if you can't go under the ground, and you can't go on the ground, above the ground is the only possibility. It's about a 15-mile float to the Long Beach port facilities.
Using the same means to raise the load to the Vandenberg launch pads also would be a possibiliity.
Am I missing something?
does anyone have an opinion yay/nay regarding hauling, for example, a BFR from factory to port (thence barge to launch site) by means of a heavy-lift dirigible? Although I'm not a big booster of lighter-than-air transport in general, it seems to me this could be a spectacularly good fit. We have:
1. Low-volume / high-cost item
2. Short-distance / time-flexible window
3. Massively expensive alternatives: prepping road transport involves not only closing of roads, but dismantling of traffic signals, road signs and assorted obstructions. Even the 500-1000 feet to the I-105 interchange...and there are the interstate signs to take down, as well. No, a borehole is not an option!
So if you can't go under the ground, and you can't go on the ground, above the ground is the only possibility. It's about a 15-mile float to the Long Beach port facilities.
Using the same means to raise the load to the Vandenberg launch pads also would be a possibiliity.
Am I missing something?
Last edited:
Ulmo
Active Member
Indeed.
Every single SpaceX location except for Hawthorne itself is now placed beside an ocean. Boats of any size <= Panama Canal specs can be used. Water-based boats can take anything from any Hawthorne area ocean port to any of SpaceX's other facilities.
I do not know the logistics of getting items from Hawthorne to the ocean. That might mean that from now on they just don't bother. They do have an air port at Hawthorne location, though, in case that works. I don't know if anybody has thought of ways to transport rocket parts via air. Maybe something which isn't wing-boyancy based (due to the airlift speed and size issues making it not fit the air port), and is stronger than a helicopter (since the rotor would have to go faster than the speed of sound in order to be strong and large enough to carry large items, and thus have questionable lift). Hmmmmm. Anybody?
They could fit jets to large items and drive them like rockets. But that kind of defeats the purpose ...
If only there was another way ...
You're a body builder?
Anyway, I was thinking, what if we used a blimp?
The latest blimp craze died down; a simple search shows a lot of activity a few years ago, and in the last few months, it's just outdated blimp tech and diminuitive reactions to the past of blimps. In other words, it's under-represented in the marketplace of ideas, therefore simply because of that, I think it has a high probability of working. Investigate the excuses they used to shut down recent research, and be skeptical enought to accept that everything they used to conclude they should shut down research was a targeted set of lies, and pick up from where they left off, questioning all their findings and conclusions. I bet it would work.
Sorry if my market-based approach of engineering analysis isn't appropriate for this topic.
Last edited:
You say blimp; I say dirigible....I've no idea if the cognoscenti distinguish between the two.
Ulmo
Active Member
I like them both.
I'm just upset that we don't get to see the more exciting stuff SpaceX does. Their website is always mum except for a brief window into most (?) of their production launches. If they made public more of their engineering decisions, even if 2 or 3 years outdated, even the ones they decided not to do, even their failures, it would be far more exciting. Alas, I don't even think anyone should recommend that to them, since even that could reveal too many trade secrets. It's just upsetting to me since the only other thing I can do, for instance, today, is dig ditches or paint walls (house chores).
Into the rabbit hole...
Apparently, a blimp is a non-rigid aerostat. Blimp is a type of dirigible.
Similar threads
- Article
