Whether he succeeds or fails (I hope he succeeds of course) - the fact that he's trying is commendable enough since we can learn a lot from failure as well.
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Space X Announces BFR - Travel anywhere on earth in under an hour - Mars in 2022
- Thread starter mcfrank
- Start date
Whether he succeeds or fails (I hope he succeeds of course) - the fact that he's trying is commendable enough since we can learn a lot from failure as well.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
Yeah, that sounds like rather typical engineer hubris to me. We're already at the end of 2017, planning for another planet is not something you can do in just four years. Unless you just want to crash the rocket on it, that's doable. Rocket Riiiiiick! *thud*
ShadowKingpin
Member
Yes!! We can finally setup on the Moon and sing our songs about John Madden!
FIREKNIGHT2029
Member
I hope he succeeds. All this sounds very exciting.
eyeball_kid
Member
People said the same thing about the Falcon 9. I mean how many people really thought in 2017 that SpaceX would be sending cargo to the ISS with a rocket that autonomously lands back at its base? That's straight out of science-fiction, but it's a reality now.
I'm not saying getting people to Mars doesn't present very hard challenges, but SpaceX has brilliant people and they have a clear focus. If a government project could get people to the Moon in a few years, it's plausible to do the same for Mars with private enterprise. The only restriction might be the amount of resources necessary for everything to come together in that kind of timeframe.
TheCochese
Banned
Dammit I made that joke already.
NASA would be pushing a far more aggressive schedule themselves if they had greater funding.
KernelPanic
Member
2022 on Mars? Bit overzealous methinks.
And do what on Mars?
Are they going to offer helicopter tours over Olympus Mons too?
And do what on Mars?
Are they going to offer helicopter tours over Olympus Mons too?
You mean if they weren't a completely political organization that is incapable of taking on risky ventures without a firm dictate from above..
NASA has enough funding to do aggressive things if that was their goal, but they are more interested in pushing along everyone's pet project than they are in just achieving a goal.
If NASA was committed to going to Mars, they could do it, but not by fucking about with ion engines or nuclear rockets or building a spaceship in orbit.
Going to mars is risky, sure, but it does not require any technology we do not already possess. All you need to do is build a big fucking rocket(no pun intended) to lift a payload and throw it to Mars.
You don't need some new engine technology to shorten the trip to 30 days or some nonexistant EM shielding, you just need to be willing to say 'we are doing this because we consider it worth the risk'. I'd bet every single astronaut and astronaut candidate would gladly be willing to sign up for that mission. 1-2% increased lifetime chance of cancer to be the first humans on mars? Seems like a fair tradeoff to me.
johancruijff
Banned
🤔🤔
I'm not from the US
But you're gonna stretch a railroad for for 1/2 train x day?
efyu_lemonardo
May I have a cookie?
The website says cost per passenger on an Earth to Earth trip is expected to be not much higher than flying coach today.
Hope I live to see this!
Hope I live to see this!
killer rin
Member
That concept video is so fucking awesome. I seriously hope that Space X can make this future safe and cost effective enough that it becomes just a part of everyday reality. Thats the future I want. Thats the future I have always dreamed of.
I'm actually quite okay with this, because to me it actually moved their timeline up. I didn't think they would get a craft to mars until 2028, but even if this project gets pushed back 4 years, that's still 2026. And this seems a lot more plausible.
Mr_Antimatter
Member
I don't think we'll see a person on mars till the 2030's. But I could see them landing a rocket on mars and then returning it to earth by the mid 2020's. That woudl be a critical test of if a manned mission is possible.
Ether_Snake
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I still think the space elevator is what we should be building, but whatever. First start with a thin one that can only have small satellites go up and down, as proof of concept, then go up from there. Burning a bunch of fuel can't be the way of the future.
I don't think you understand how hard going to Mars actually is. To give one example, the EM shielding isn't about nor increasing astronauts cancer risk by 1-2%. Shit, astronauts already experience that. EM shielding is so that if a CME happens, people on a Mars mission won't get radiation poisining and die.
And there are many, many more complexities that people don't usually think about that both NASA and SpaceX have to deal with if they want to go to Mars.
The problem isn't what is going on it. The problem is the tension on the cable from being lowered to earth in the first place.
A space elivator requires several orders of magnitude of improvement over existing technology. Even if NASA had a decent budget I don't think they'd spring for it because the scope of the project is leaps and bounds above what humanity has ever attempted.
Sadly Id imagine even if this was remotely possible its also an extremely fragile thing at the mercy of even a pretty basic terrorist attack that would destroy it very easily. A plane, a missile, whatever. Sadly humanity is fractured as fuck and full of religious nut jobs that would gladly want to destroy it.
nekkid
It doesn't matter who we are, what matters is our plan.
I dont understand where you are all getting this timescale to Mars in 4 years from. If you watch his presentation he says BFR first launch in 2022 and to Mars in 2024.
He acknowledges the timeline is aspirational then says something like I dont know, 5 years seems like a long time.
He acknowledges the timeline is aspirational then says something like I dont know, 5 years seems like a long time.
He really doesn't. Musk is trying to push electric and this is another venture to get us beyond Earth. The people moving Park makes it a potential money earner. I'm sure once Musk can get will try to jumpstart lectric flight too but it's not currently economical/possible.
Its pretty silly to talk about the need for conservation in regards to Musk when he's clearly working in that field too.
How so?
i hate to break it to you, but you've been living in science fiction for quite some time now.
andythinkpad
Member
The Mars plan he preached 1 or 2 years ago was already a huge empty promise.
I can argue the high speed pod he is developing is way less power efficient than conventional high speed train too, but I can wait on this one.
I was thinking this as well.
Perhaps the engine of the rocket needs to be replaced every X launches, but the rocket itself could even need less maintenance compared to a large plane.
When you consider that a Boeing 777 costs around $300M to build, and will probably fly for 30 years. During that time, it will fly the distance of about 2000 times the circumference of the earth. I'm curious how that translates to rockets. I can't imagine it takes the same amount of money to build a BFR somehow.
So for the BFR, doing trips from NY to Singapore all its life to do the same mileage, it would need to take 11.500 one-way trips. Let's say it could fly there, refuel and go back 4 times in 24-hours, it would take just 7.5 years to do that. Assuming that they will make about the same off a single transfer of passengers (fewer people, higher ticket price), but do it at a lower cost (no in-flight staff needed, no pilot needed) it could even be much more profitable in the long run compared to regular fights.
But I'm sure there's someone here with a much better understanding of how this all works.
Construction is supposed to start next year. BFR is the future of SpaceX for everything. Falcon Heavy will be minimally produced and Falcon 9 will continue for awhile but the end goal is 2 Models of BFR. Fullsize for Mars and other objectives and a Smaller BFR for Earth Orbit Missions
It uses pretty much the same engines theyre already using, just more of them. Musk is probably optimistic because theyve done a lot of the hard work along the way with Falcon.
perfectchaos007
Member
It would be incredible if Space X gets man on Mars before NASA. I hope it happens in my lifetime
nekkid
It doesn't matter who we are, what matters is our plan.
Sir_Crocodile
Member
Finally reached tintin
yesssssssssss
yesssssssssss
Ryanair only flying to Japan?
Jezbollah
Member
I don't know if they'll get to mars first - but I'll bet BFR flies before SLS does.
nekkid
It doesn't matter who we are, what matters is our plan.
And for a fraction of the price.
Im a big fan of NASAs legacy - but holy shit theyre wasteful and poorly-managed. Its indicative of all government operations, to be honest.
All new engines actually. Bigger, higher pressure, more efficient, different fuel (methane instead of kerosene).
CyclopsRock
Member
This is the same "mars plan". The only thing they aren't doing now is sending a Dragon there on a Falcon Heavy - which imo is a bit of a shame, but it was basically a mission without a purpose in the first place. I mean, we already have rockets that can get "stuff" to the surface of Mars. The remarkable thing about the BFR is that the "stuff" we can get there is orders of magnitude larger *and* we should be able to get it back to earth again.
Nope, it's totally different. The current engines are Merlin's and the new ones are Raptors.
The current F9s can be reused a few times, the "final" F9s (block 5) will in theory be tens of times, and the BFR is planned to be many hundreds of times, based on what they've learned so far.
They had a video on the presentation of the Raptor firing for longer than it'll need to fire for during a Mars landing. It seems it's ready the most powerful engine of any type ever made. I really don't understand how there are some people out there who actually think Musk is a shyster.
Jezbollah
Member
The push at the moment is for cost reduction and fuel savings in commercial airlines. Also noise reduction. Concorde wasnt able to maximise its speed benefit because it wasnt allowed to be supersonic over land. This would be even noisier and even less fuel efficient. Youll get from New York to Tokyo in half an hour, but itll take you a couple of hours to get to and from the actual city because of how far away youll be landing. Add in security etc, and it doesnt end up that fast.
Also Im not sure of the market for it anyway - people want convenience and cheap. I just cant see the cost getting close enough for normal people to want to use this, or the infrastructure being such that it is meaningful to use as fast travel, at least not anytime soon.
As part of a bigger picture this is where I see the benefits of reusable space vehicles pitch, and being more a think piece than a concrete plan, its fine though
Also Im not sure of the market for it anyway - people want convenience and cheap. I just cant see the cost getting close enough for normal people to want to use this, or the infrastructure being such that it is meaningful to use as fast travel, at least not anytime soon.
As part of a bigger picture this is where I see the benefits of reusable space vehicles pitch, and being more a think piece than a concrete plan, its fine though
FairFriend
Member
People did not accept the Concorde and the project was abandoned the one time a crash (not due to the Concorde itself) happened. Let's see how this pans out.
The Greek Freak
Member
Yup if I'm going to be squished like cattle at least make the trip fast as fuck.
Yep, 305m.
Linkstrikesback
Member
NASA doesn't treat trying to get to mars as a priority because there's almost no point from a research perspective to strand people to die there.
The technologies that NASA develops, like the em drive you just shit on are far more important. Space travel with current rockets to other astral bodies is just waste of everyone's time.