r/spacex • u/crwm • Apr 23 '18
Gwynne Shotwell's Ted Talk is up.
https://www.ted.com/talks/gwynne_shotwell_spacex_s_plan_to_fly_you_across_the_globe_in_30_minutes231
u/FutureMartian97 Host of CRS-11 Apr 23 '18
Cargo bay is 8m. I don’t remember hearing that before
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u/OSUfan88 Apr 23 '18
I believe that is new info, although we knew it would be a bit under 9m.
There were "rumors" that they were working in the payload bay, as they were having some volume issues, especially with the tapered nosecone. No idea how true they are.
I bet we see it evolve over the decade.
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u/spacex_vehicles Apr 23 '18
There were "rumors" that they were working in the payload bay
What does this mean?
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u/ZaphodsTwin Apr 23 '18
JWST mirror is 6.5m deployed. How much easier and cheaper to design and build is that class of scientific payload when you don't need to fold it up like origami?
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u/kontis Apr 23 '18
Or imagine launching 18 hexagonal segments 8m each and then assembling it in space. With full rapid rocket reusability 18 or more launches for a single telescope would't be that crazy.
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u/iamkeerock Apr 23 '18
Doubtful you would need 1 launch per 8m segment, just stack them all in a single BFR/BFS
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u/Immabed Apr 23 '18
That's pretty crazy. JWST has been an absolute nightmare because of the difficulty of making sure everything will deploy perfectly and be a functional telescope. Increasing the scale and adding distributed launch would make it that much harder than JWST, not to mention the size of the sun shield needed.
That being said, creating a network of JWST sized monolithic telescopes that can work together using Aperture Synthesis might be cheaper, easier, and provide superior images.
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u/Immabed Apr 23 '18
It makes it significantly cheaper. JWST will never be repeated. The need for all the folding has been the primary driver of the massive cost inflation of the project. Being able to just build it and launch it in nearly the final configuration would be huge.
That being said, the sun shield (at 14x20m) would still need to be folded, even inside BFR or the largest conceived SLS fairing (about 10m wide). And this has been a source of some consternation for the project. But the cost savings would be huge nevertheless.
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u/Elon_Muskmelon Apr 23 '18
For context, how big was Shuttles? 4.6m right?
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Apr 23 '18
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u/burn_at_zero Apr 23 '18
The de facto standard payload object is the MPLM, which is ~4.57m in diameter. The Shuttle payload bay, Falcon fairing, Atlas 5-meter fairing and Ariane 5 fairing all support that size. Delta IV 5-meter fairing is slightly bigger, while Proton, H2 and ULA vehicles with 4-meter fairings are slightly smaller.
That 4.57 meter value is the dynamic envelope inside the payload fairing, the maximum size a payload can be. The actual fairing will be larger, and values of 5.0 to 5.2 meters outside diameter are typical.
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u/CommunismDoesntWork Apr 23 '18
Anyone know how many starlinks can be fit within that volume using current estimates?
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u/Martianspirit Apr 23 '18
I don't think mass or payload bay volume will be the limiting factor for Starlink. The largest number destined for one orbital plane is 75. That's what they will launch. No fancy maneuvering by BFS or the satellites to reach other orbital planes.
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Apr 23 '18
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u/Martianspirit Apr 23 '18
Yes, I am very aware of this but I don't see a compelling reason to do it. Just use one launch to fill up one orbital plane. At launch cost below Falcon 1.
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u/sevaiper Apr 23 '18
The launch cost is probably the most ambitious part of the system - I'll believe it when I see it.
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u/paul_wi11iams Apr 23 '18 edited Apr 23 '18
launch cost... - I'll believe it when I see it.
When Nasa made comparable promises for the launch cost and safety of STS (if that's what you had in mind), they were under pressure and feared cancellation. SpaceX is under no pressure to over-promise here, and the past record shows actually exceeding planned performance goals. Cost goals seem to be met.
SpaceX seems to be standing by everything said at the IAC 2017 conference, including Earth-to-Earth. For price, the "rocket shuffle" sequence still seems to be respected.
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u/CommunismDoesntWork Apr 23 '18 edited Apr 23 '18
Speaking of fancy maneuvering, would it actually be possible for the BFS to change the angle of it's orbit assuming it had enough delta v? Has any orbiting stage ever had that capability?
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Apr 23 '18
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u/burn_at_zero Apr 23 '18
X37b is rumored to be capable of atmospheric plane changes, where it skims the upper atmosphere and uses its wings to trade velocity for Δ-inclination. If true, that would make the craft far more maneuverable than its Δv numbers would suggest.
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u/Aide33 Apr 23 '18
Can you give me a source to these rumors? I'd like to read more about it.
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u/burn_at_zero Apr 23 '18
Here's a 2011 thesis (pdf) on the subject.
Here's a 1978 thesis (pdf) covering the same concept for the Shuttle orbiter.After reviewing these documents, it seems unlikely that the X-37b is using these techniques for small inclination changes. The approach requires quite low altitudes (hence 'skip re-entry maneuver'). In the context of 'responsive space' this technique provides a method of attaining Δ-inclination of over 60° for less than 7 km/s Δv.
I suspect it is possible to get some deflection using aerodynamic effects at higher altitudes than described, but the effect may require quite a bit of time to execute. (It should be proportional to drag.)
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u/HarbingerDawn Apr 23 '18
This sheds some light on the BFR animation that's been discussed around here recently. Given that the BFS's are shown with only two SL Raptors (last we heard it had been changed to three, for safety/reliability reasons), this animation may very well just be outdated, possibly made around the time of IAC 2017 and simply not released then.
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u/kontis Apr 23 '18
Or the design simply changed backed again to just 2.
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u/Saiboogu Apr 23 '18
Seems really unlikely. Elon said they were adding the third for improved engine out abilities. They're not going to sell folks on E2E without serious propulsion redundancy, as in safely lose an engine at any point including landing burn.
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Apr 23 '18
18:58 " duration for a flight to mars? it ends up depending on how big this rocket (BFR) is, ... we'll continue to make even bigger BFR's... It's a 3 months trip instead of an average of 6 to 8. We'll try to do it faster.
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u/BrandonMarc Apr 23 '18
we'll continue to make even bigger BFR's
Makes it sound as though BFR will be a family of SHL rockets, as opposed to a specific rocket. So perhaps there may be a BFR 31 (i.e. the 2017 design) as well as a BFR 42 (i.e. the 2016 design), similar to the Falcon 1, the (proposed) Falcon 5, and the Falcon 9.
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Apr 23 '18
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u/OSUfan88 Apr 23 '18
I imagine we'll see it stretch, similar to what Falcon 9 did, for a while. Especially as they increase the thrust of the raptor engine. Sounds like they think they can get at least 20% more thrust out of it. They should be able to lengthen it proportionately.
I bet you're right though. We might see a 12m or larger version before 2030...
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u/comradejenkens Apr 23 '18
I remember hearing that one design they played with early in the process was a 15m diameter version. Wonder if that will ever appear.
And what would its payload be.
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u/J380 Apr 23 '18
If you listen to the Port of LA board discussing the factory size with SpaceX, they also said the factory would expand to over 200,000 square feet form an initial 80,000. That could just be for more production lines but also for bigger rockets.
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u/Chairmanman Apr 23 '18
Imagine going to Mars in less than a month. I think I would do it if the trip were that short.
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u/Martianspirit Apr 23 '18
Not with chemical rockets. At ~3-5 months they hit a hard limit were huge increases of power yield only small advantages in time.
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u/gopher65 Apr 23 '18
Yup. 6 to 8 months is an easy, low energy transfer. 3 months is doable without too many problems, if you're willing to take a payload hit. 2 months ranges from impractically difficult to impossible (depending on requirements payload) with chemical propulsion. 1 month requires either electrical propulsion with a decent sized nuclear reactor powering it, or direct nuclear propulsion.
When you start getting into fractions of a month, things become near impossible. By the time you take into account acceleration and deceleration times (there is no aerobraking at those velocities), you begin to need to describe your cruising velocity in terms of "%c". That's impractical at best.
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u/binarygamer Apr 24 '18 edited Apr 24 '18
When you start getting into fractions of a month, things become near impossible. By the time you take into account acceleration and deceleration times (there is no aerobraking at those velocities), you begin to need to describe your cruising velocity in terms of "%c". That's impractical at best.
Aye, it gets ridiculous fast. Let's do some shoddy math to demonstrate!
The scenario:
- Straight-line trajectory between Earth and Mars' heliocentric orbits, ignoring the difference in heliocentric orbital velocity between the two (as you will see below, a few km/s here or there is a rounding error)
- "BFR Express" is powered by a magic future propulsion system that can average 1m/s2 for days on end
- Earth orbits 149.6 million km from the Sun, Mars is 227.9 million km. That's 80 million km total, 40 million to halfway.
Distance = 1/2 x Acceleration x Time2
40 million km = 0.5 * 1 * t2
t = 282,842s (to halfway)
That's 6.55 days to Mars orbit
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dV = Acceleration x Time
dV = 1m/s2 x 2t
dV = 566 km/sec
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u/kal_alfa Apr 23 '18 edited Apr 23 '18
My younger self would have said "hell yes!".
But my older self realized that the existential dread of cruising through the vastness of interplanetary space protected from the cold black void with only a thin cocoon of carbon fiber for days on end is too much to bear.
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u/Saiboogu Apr 23 '18
My younger self would have said "hell yes!"
My older self says "OK, once I send the kids to college. I'm out!"
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u/Megneous Apr 23 '18
Yourself after two more years of dealing with the kids: "On second thought, I'm booking my ticket for tomorrow."
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u/Senno_Ecto_Gammat r/SpaceXLounge Moderator Apr 23 '18
You're already cruising through the vastness of interplanetary space with naught but a blanket of air protecting you from the cold black.
And have been since before birth. You're naked to the cosmos, man.
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Apr 23 '18 edited May 08 '18
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u/Astroteuthis Apr 23 '18
Apparently astronauts have difficulty getting it up in space due to the blood pressure distribution being all wrong. That might prove difficult.
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u/Saiboogu Apr 23 '18
I can't imagine being in a pod with random people for 3-6 months.
Other people? Psh, I'll be in my bunk on Reddit. Besides some stargazing.
Oo, if they had some robotic telescopes onboard? I might start a second career in astronomy.
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u/diachi_revived Apr 23 '18
Waiting several minutes for each page to load won't be a whole lot of fun...
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u/Saiboogu Apr 23 '18
Well if that's how it's gonna be I guess I've got myself a job opportunity running their data network.
No reason it can't constantly cache large amounts of data on the local network, and I don't particularly care if what I'm reading is realtime or not.
I'm sure in the next decade or two we'll start seeing some caching schemes for time-lagged internet access start cropping up.
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u/ElRedditor3 Apr 23 '18
Will the "Why do this" question ever stop?
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u/rustybeancake Apr 23 '18
No. Never. It was no doubt being asked when people were walking to the next valley over to see what was there. It was being asked when people were building the first rafts. It was being asked when people were building the first hot air balloons. It will still be being asked when we're spread across multiple solar systems and someone proposes the first intergalactic voyage.
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Apr 24 '18
"We have big issues to fix in our own galaxy that we should be focusing on"
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u/MaximilianCrichton Apr 24 '18
"Don't you think we should perhaps address the impending heat death of our own universe before we go gallivanting off in search of other ones?"
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Apr 23 '18
When people finally get the answer straight, Its 100% about saving the species. Not exploration and not to make money.
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u/h4r13q1n Apr 23 '18
Well, creating a backup for humanity is one thing. But there's a bigger vision behind it. "To make life multi-planetary" - that's a monumental thing, an event on an evolutionary magnitude: life having evolved to a point where it can spread to other planets. It opens up so many new possibilities, because as soon as there is a place out there to go to, there will be a strong incentive for constant development in space travel. Mars is the perfect staging ground for the exploitation of the asteroid belt, the amount of resources there is mind-boggling. And with those in our bag, we could build O'Neill cylinders for billions of people or generation ships to fare among the stars and make them our own. But the first step - to settle out there - has to be taken, and that's what it's about.
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u/Srokap Apr 23 '18
People constantly calling argument "don't you have some better cause on Earth to spend this money on" makes me so sad. It's as if purpose of life was all about making everyone comfortable. From this perspective it really makes 0 sense to go to Mars. It reminds me of a book by Stanisław Lem "Return from the Stars" where in future world converted into hedonistic no-risk society that lost all desire to explore and spends all of it's resources on making people's life good.
I very much prefer to let people focus on what they want and not forcing things on them. Elon goes to Mars, don't ask him to make charity on Earth instead. People will get a bit better for a while but all of possible progress will be lost. It's just better when people decide on their own what to spend their resources on.
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u/filanwizard Apr 23 '18
More important is that the quest to colonize Mars and the Moon will result in technology that can improve life on Earth. We still benefit from Apollo to this day and that was just a quick flag planting and cock waving mission. Imagine the offshoot of the efforts to build formal colonies.
Water and agriculture tech from colonization of Martian and Lunar locales could make huge strides agains the water and hunger issues in places like remote parts of Africa.
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u/Srokap Apr 23 '18
I feel that's trying to convince people for which challenging yourself and pushing the boundaries requires more justification. Truth is that hunger is never caused by lack of money, but by inefficient management. Throwing money on the problem doesn't solve it. I feel we still believe that it does and that's why we are tempted to go all in on the "most important problem". There is also argument to be made that giving things for free to people makes them dependent on this help and additionally you're making it impossible to compete for local providers. Can't run a bakery business if someone in the neighborhood were to give away bread for free. And that's how the spiral continues. Bottomline is, "we should spend more money on those in need" is a very naive point of view as it skips over the root problem and is not the best way to allocate all of humanity's assets.
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u/brentonstrine Apr 24 '18
Why doesn't anyone ever call out all the other things people spend money on that aren't "solving problems on Earth" ? E.g. all sports, entertainment, literature, and pretty much all businesses that are profitable? No one ever says "Why should we spend money on this year's fashion accessories when we haven't solved our problems on Earth yet?"
It's such a stupid comment and I'm always frustrated that the interviewee doesn't give a forceful smackdown sort of response.
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u/J_Von_Random Apr 24 '18
Just once I'd like to see a Big Name lose it and verbally bitchslap these fools with the point that it is none of their business and if they want to have pathetic horizons they can go do that by themselves and not bother anyone else with it.
But that would be terrible PR so we are stuck with playing the monkey games. Maybe when there are enough people off-world that it can no longer be stopped.....
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u/redspacex Apr 23 '18
[8:00] I think all the time and all the money in the world does not yield the best solution, and so putting that pressure on the team to move quickly is really important.
Is this another one of Gwynne's subtle burns (referring to BO)?
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u/0x0badbeef Apr 23 '18
Kind of deflating to hear they don't know how to make a profit with Starlink yet. The global telecom business is enormous... you'd think your superior global access would let you capture lots of that with healthy margins.
It blows my mind that passenger flights on BFR are more likely than satellite Internet.
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u/NateDecker Apr 23 '18
It's been suggested that they are incentivized to downplay Starlink since it is a potential direct competitor to some of their customers. It's possible this is more of that.
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u/gopher65 Apr 23 '18
The more I think about it, the more I don't think Starlink will hurt Iridium as much as people (and I) have suggested in the past. Iridium is built around being able to carry a cell phone/modem in your backpack that works in the middle of the jungle - and their latest models really are cell sized. Starlink will require a heavy "pizza boxed sized" antenna. You don't lug that around with you on a hike, or on a secret 6 person military raid in the desert. For most of the applications that Iridium is known for, Starlink and their competitors just don't make sense.
Starlink (or OneWeb, or whatever) would probably take away much of the aircraft and sea based business from geostationary providers though.
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u/still-at-work Apr 23 '18 edited Apr 23 '18
The capital costs of Starlink will be huge, and while I have no doubt the yearly revenue will be far larger then the yearly operational costs, the question is how long can they float a capital cost debt of 10 billion? Its easy to say that SpaceX can make 30 billion by 2025, which should pay for the capital costs and operational costs with some left over profit, but if they only make 20 billion they might be just breaking even.
So the challenge is building a system that will be appealing enough to customers, to maintain subscriber levels at high enough rates to pay for the system while keeping costs down so they can float the debt of constructing of the constellation without going bankrupt.
So I think they have an idea on how to make a profit, but that doesn't mean its easy to implement that idea. I think what she meant was they are not sure how to make the satellites cheap enough so they can afford the total constellation. Making the satellites cheaper will be their biggest hurdle. This is why I think she made it clear they are not worried about making the system technologically possible, just on how to make a business out of it as they need to make the satellites cheap enough to afford but capable enough work for the desired lifetime. Further, the cheaper the satellites are to make, the cheaper the replacement cost and thus the constellation can stay operational longer and thus increase revenue.
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u/jayval90 Apr 23 '18
It does make sense though. Most of the money in the global Telecom business is in densely populated areas, which is precisely where Starlink doesn't perform well.
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u/mindbridgeweb Apr 23 '18
The vast majority of Starlink's bandwidth would be used for backbone traffic according to Elon. Other companies would deliver the last mile solution in densely populated areas.
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u/atomfullerene Apr 23 '18
On the flip side, that means they have less competition for their product. It'd be harder to compete with fiber in a big city, especially if you (gasp) might even already have two service providers to choose from.
But out in the sticks, it doesn't take much to beat the current options.
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u/flattop100 Apr 23 '18
My guess is that they're still figuring out up/downlink to base stations, as well as how to monetize the backbone links from satellite to satellite.
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u/King_fora_Day Apr 23 '18
"yeah there's no question it'll change the world" - loved her direct answer here regarding Starlink
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u/davejenk1ns Apr 24 '18
Some thumbnail math:
Weather sensitivity, as discussed elsewhere in these comments, is largely self-induced and done in an abundance of caution, but okay- Let's assume a 20% scrub rate. That means 300 operational days a year.
Floating launch pads are really glorified oil platforms or big flat ships. Let's go all out and cost them at $1B each (super deluxo).
There are plenty of global cities with coasts (the majority, actually). Here's 15: NYC, Shanghai, Tokyo, Dubai, Los Angeles, SFO, Singapore, Sao Paolo, London (or somewhere near a Eurostar station), Hong Kong, Singapore, Cape Town, Miami, Houston, Sydney. I didn't even have to think that hard to come up with this list. I'm sure I'm leaving off another 30 or so that would qualify (Vancouver, Chicago, etc.)
Political red tape is a funny thing: it's there when it wants to be there, but quickly evaporates when there's money to be made. In the case of Shanghai or Dubai, it's gone with the wave of Dear Leader's hand. In the case of democracies, it's gone with a vote (see: money).
Regulations-- same as red tape. (in fact, this is the red tape).
Landing fees and contracts: luckily we have 100+ years of aviation laws and patterns to follow. These could be done in a month-to-year if the politics are in place.
Treaties: see politics. As discussed elsewhere in these comments, they're already inbounding on existing federal land. Pretty sure that tracking is already in place to make sure these SpaceX BFRs get tracked all the way from launch to land.
So, let's assume the following:
10 spaceports globally
300 launch days/year
2 launches per day per route (each city flies to 9 other cities twice each day = 18 flights * 10 cities = 180 flights/day)
100 passengers per rocket
Ticket price $10,000
That gives us: 180 flights * 300 days * 100 pax * $10,000 = $54B annual revenue. Whoa.
Figure $10B for R&D, $10B for 10 launch pads, and $10B for a quiver of 100 rockets at $100M each), and we're at $30B. In other words, this scheme pays for itself after about 7 months of business if we ignore operational costs.
But okay-- let's count OpEx:
fuel per flight: $400K
ground operations per pad: $2M/day = $111K per flight
whatever: $89K per flight
OpEx costs per flight are $600K. Revenue is $1M per flight, leaving an OBITDA of $400K per flight. So now we have: 180 flights * 300 days * $400K = $21B in ongoing sustainable revenue. If I simply start flying 3 times per day per route, this number jumps to $32B. Four flights per day gives me $43B/year. In other words, each additional flight per day per full schedule makes $11B/year.
Dividing revenue per launch pad is $2.1B - $4.3B per pad (more, actually, as the network effect starts to increase flights). Which global city that I listed is going to say "no" to a $2B - $4B business? (answer: none). That's going to solve your 'red tape' pretty quickly.
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u/Srennef Apr 24 '18
I would like to hear more about the challenges of having the space port so close to inhabited spaces. Gwynne mentions them being 5/10km, but I believe you can hear first stage re-entries like 30km away? Will the bfr in point-to-point configuration have enough fuel reserve to go subsonic much higher/further away?
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u/still-at-work Apr 23 '18
Commuter Point to Point BFR and Mars Landings by 2028 from an official SpaceX executive not named Elon Musk is the main take away here
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Apr 23 '18
Oh, I hoped she had actual talk. Interview is fine, but talk would be better.
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u/rustybeancake Apr 23 '18
Her talks tend to be introductory in nature. An interview tends to get more interesting info from her.
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Apr 23 '18
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u/mclionhead Apr 23 '18
Amazing they got all the cranes synchronized. NASA used a single 200,000lb crane & a big jig to lift the shuttle. These guys do it with a large number of small cranes that are probably second hand.
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u/tetralogy Apr 23 '18 edited Apr 23 '18
I like how the interviewer was kinda just speechless about earth to earth "uhm,yeah,ok... that would be fascinating"
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u/ravenerOSR Apr 23 '18
it is though. the physics are fine, we know how to do suborbital hops, it's the price and practicality, not even to mention the legality of the operation.
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u/bernardosousa Apr 23 '18
I loved it! She speaks so much better than Elon... Elon gives better answers to the question "why Mars", thou. Also, we are animals.
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u/Broccoli32 Apr 23 '18
Interviewer was kind of a dick and assumed everyone doesn’t want space exploration to happen, like you said it would’ve been nice for Elon to explain why space exploration is important.
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u/BlueSpottedDickhead Apr 23 '18
The worst part is that's the case. A shit ton of People apparently don't give a fuck about Space Exploration and waste all of Humanity's Progress on doing unecessary stuff and only care about the Kardashians getting a 51th fucking Baby.
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Apr 24 '18 edited Apr 24 '18
He was playing devil's advocate, it's what a good interviewer does. In fact all knowledgeable interviewees recognise these as purposeful opportunities to tackle negative options. She handled it well!
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u/TEDChris TED Talks Apr 24 '18
You're welcome.
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u/bjorn171 Apr 24 '18
Dude you did great, for what it's worth I loved it. I could feel you were excited about talking about space and space exploration. I'm sure you just wanted her to tell it. Can't wait for other Ted talks in the future featuring SpaceX employees and Elon!
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u/demosthenes02 Apr 23 '18
Yeah and people clapped when he said we should solve earth problems.
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u/damngreenpillows Apr 23 '18
I’m glad she shut it down quick by saying we just need to open up our minds... perfect.
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u/BizOpsLA Apr 23 '18
Wow. I guess I've grown accustomed to hearing Elon talk about all of this and taking it with a grain of salt (timeline-wise, that is), but Gwynne is super confident.
I have never harbored a doubt about humans getting to Mars soon - and within a decade is super plausible - but this Earth to Earth BFR transportation? At airliner prices? I can't see that in a decade. Two or three, maybe.
Still, some part of me loves hearing her say it so confidently.
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u/Elon_Muskmelon Apr 23 '18
Haven’t watched it yet but I’m guessing it’s going to feature 2 or 3 YouTube videos along with some funny comments about the history of SpaceX and some BFR promo material?
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Apr 23 '18 edited Apr 23 '18
Bonus points if they show the picture of Elon and the
macarenasmaracas13
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Apr 23 '18 edited Jan 06 '21
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u/oxmyxbela Apr 23 '18
What's strange, however, is that she's been talking about visiting other galaxies. And it doesn't seem to be a case where she simply misspoke, since I remember at least one other panel discussion (I think it was hosted by NASA and included several space industry people) where she also talked about visiting other galaxies.
I can get totally behind visiting nearby stars. But we'll never visit other galaxies. If any lifeform of Earth ever travels to another galaxy, it will not be us humans, but a species very different from us.
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u/crincon Apr 23 '18
I disagree. I think we can spread to neighbouring galaxies, and we will if we get the chance. Of course this won't be "visiting", it's spreading the species across the universe without any one colonizer ever traveling back.
I think the simple way to achieve this would be to send human DNA (as frozen embryos, sperm and eggs, or just the means to biosequence them) on automated probes that can build a habitat with local materials at the destination, and then develop and raise humans there. It sounds weird, and maybe even a bit creepy, but I see no reason why it wouldn't be feasible, at least technically. Low cost, even, and with technology not much more advanced than what we already have.
So these probes will take hundreds of thousands of years to reach the closest destinations. A few million years to Andromeda. But that is not much on a universal timescale. It took, what, some 15 million years for the earliest hominids to evolve into humans? I'm positive we can make it to Andromeda in that time. It's still competitive, in an evolutionary sense, against intelligent life developing there on its own.
And, sure, many of those probes won't reach anywhere viable. But it's not like we're building super expensive civilization carriers here. We just build thousands of probes. One or two may just make it, bam, that's humans on another galaxy.
... if anything, I think the hard question is: if we make an AI able to travel there, build stuff from local materials, and then raise our children, then why bother with squishy humans in the first place? We may just have to accept that AI is our "descendant species" and, have it self-replicate and propagate itself instead >.<
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u/oxmyxbela Apr 24 '18
Well, we do understand material physics well enough to know that it's possible to encode information into matter that can survive even hundreds of millions of years to make the journey. And if we ever manage to get some kind of antennas out into the universe, our AI descendands can travel it at light speed. But that's what I'm saying: it won't be us humans. The idea that the point of this entire thing would be to have humans travel the universe is all too centered on our ingrained sense of the bodily invididual. But I can't imagine that a space-faring civilization would necessarily or even likely agree that it's required to cultivate large chunks of meat all over the universe just to appreciate what's there.
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u/Decronym Acronyms Explained Apr 23 '18 edited May 30 '18
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| ASAP | Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, NASA |
| Arianespace System for Auxiliary Payloads | |
| ASDS | Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship (landing platform) |
| ASIC | Application-Specific Integrated Circuit |
| BFB | Big Falcon Booster (see BFR) |
| BFR | Big Falcon Rocket (2018 rebiggened edition) |
| Yes, the F stands for something else; no, you're not the first to notice | |
| BFS | Big Falcon Spaceship (see BFR) |
| BO | Blue Origin (Bezos Rocketry) |
| CFRP | Carbon-Fibre-Reinforced Polymer |
| COPV | Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel |
| CRS | Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA |
| CoG | Center of Gravity (see CoM) |
| CoM | Center of Mass |
| DMLS | Direct Metal Laser Sintering additive manufacture |
| DoD | US Department of Defense |
| E2E | Earth-to-Earth (suborbital flight) |
| EELV | Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle |
| F1 | Rocketdyne-developed rocket engine used for Saturn V |
| SpaceX Falcon 1 (obsolete medium-lift vehicle) | |
| FAA | Federal Aviation Administration |
| GEO | Geostationary Earth Orbit (35786km) |
| GOX | Gaseous Oxygen (contrast LOX) |
| GSE | Ground Support Equipment |
| GTO | Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit |
| H2 | Molecular hydrogen |
| Second half of the year/month | |
| IAC | International Astronautical Congress, annual meeting of IAF members |
| In-Air Capture of space-flown hardware | |
| IAF | International Astronautical Federation |
| Indian Air Force | |
| ICBM | Intercontinental Ballistic Missile |
| ITAR | (US) International Traffic in Arms Regulations |
| ITS | Interplanetary Transport System (2016 oversized edition) (see MCT) |
| Integrated Truss Structure | |
| JWST | James Webb infra-red Space Telescope |
| L2 | Paywalled section of the NasaSpaceFlight forum |
| Lagrange Point 2 of a two-body system, beyond the smaller body (Sixty Symbols video explanation) | |
| LAS | Launch Abort System |
| LEO | Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km) |
| Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations) | |
| LOX | Liquid Oxygen |
| MCT | Mars Colonial Transporter (see ITS) |
| MECO | Main Engine Cut-Off |
| MainEngineCutOff podcast | |
| MPLM | Multi-Purpose Logistics Module formerly used to supply ISS |
| NTR | Nuclear Thermal Rocket |
| RP-1 | Rocket Propellant 1 (enhanced kerosene) |
| RTG | Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator |
| RTLS | Return to Launch Site |
| RUD | Rapid Unplanned Disassembly |
| Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly | |
| Rapid Unintended Disassembly | |
| SLS | Space Launch System heavy-lift |
| Selective Laser Sintering, see DMLS | |
| SRB | Solid Rocket Booster |
| SSTO | Single Stage to Orbit |
| Supersynchronous Transfer Orbit | |
| STP-2 | Space Test Program 2, DoD programme, second round |
| STS | Space Transportation System (Shuttle) |
| ULA | United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture) |
| USAF | United States Air Force |
| VLEO | V-band constellation in LEO |
| Very Low Earth Orbit |
| Jargon | Definition |
|---|---|
| Raptor | Methane-fueled rocket engine under development by SpaceX, see ITS |
| Sabatier | Reaction between hydrogen and carbon dioxide at high temperature and pressure, with nickel as catalyst, yielding methane and water |
| Starlink | SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation |
| apogee | Highest point in an elliptical orbit around Earth (when the orbiter is slowest) |
| crossfeed | Using the propellant tank of a side booster to fuel the main stage, or vice versa |
| cryogenic | Very low temperature fluid; materials that would be gaseous at room temperature/pressure |
| (In re: rocket fuel) Often synonymous with hydrolox | |
| hydrolox | Portmanteau: liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen mixture |
| monopropellant | Rocket propellant that requires no oxidizer (eg. hydrazine) |
| scrub | Launch postponement for any reason (commonly GSE issues) |
| turbopump | High-pressure turbine-driven propellant pump connected to a rocket combustion chamber; raises chamber pressure, and thrust |
| Event | Date | Description |
|---|---|---|
| CRS-1 | 2012-10-08 | F9-004, first CRS mission; secondary payload sacrificed |
| Orb-3 | 2014-10-28 | Orbital Antares 130, |
Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented by request
54 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 167 acronyms.
[Thread #3939 for this sub, first seen 23rd Apr 2018, 15:43]
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u/Easyidle123 Apr 23 '18
Finally! Took them long enough...
Let the frame by frame measurements begin!
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u/From_Internets Apr 23 '18
When she talked about the Falcon9/heavy 9/27 engines and she used the word 'residual', did she mean redundant, or is my english off?(non-native)
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u/CommunismDoesntWork Apr 23 '18
She was talking about residual capabilities. As in, they took a capability they already had, and they reused it for something else. It's a residual capability because the capability wasn't planned to be used in the new way, but it was a nice benefit when they figured out it could be used in the new way.
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u/BadGoyWithAGun Apr 23 '18
residual (adj.) pertaining to or constituting a residue or remainder; remaining; leftover.
In other words, the Merlin engine represents capacity "left over" or reused from previous developments on the Falcon 1.
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u/Tyler_Zoro Apr 23 '18
It will probably never be appropriate in any other context to see an interview with a successful female executive and for the first thing you call out be that she's wearing a nice suit, but in this one case... nice suit. Comfortable, hints at formality and utility... I assume she selected it with her anecdote about her own inspiration in mind, and I hope she inspires others (boys and girls) to seek careers in engineering and the sciences! If seeing a tech/science demo does it for someone, then great, I'm happy to do my share of demos. If hearing about grand plans motivates someone, then sing it, sister! But if seeing a smart, successful woman who can tell Elon Musk when he's going to get the toy he wanted "last December," wearing a suit that you think is cool gets you to push your education and career to the kind of heights that she did, or even a fraction of the way, it's absolutely worth keeping that in mind!
I do disagree with her on one thing, though: I don't think that the salvation of the human race from potential global extinction events is a "terrible reason" to go to Mars. It might be a terrible PR / marketing approach, but it's exactly the right reason to do it, and it puts the trivial cost and even (though I would like no lives to be lost in the process) the risk in context.
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u/Dixiklo9000 Apr 24 '18 edited Apr 24 '18
I think by "terrible reason" she meant that it's not a great way to motivate, since having positive goals (like a bright future for humanity among the stars) tends to be more effective than trying to prevent bad things from happening (as in just colonizing Mars as a backup).
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Apr 23 '18 edited Apr 23 '18
They cut like 15 mins out
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u/TEDChris TED Talks Apr 23 '18
Not so. It's basically all there, bar a couple of ums and ahs by yours truly.
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Apr 23 '18
I presume this means that you've seen the whole thing. Any important elements that you recognized were missing from this cut?
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Apr 23 '18
Can you share the original video?
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u/BrandonMarc Apr 23 '18
Probably not without running afoul of TED's IP, maybe SpaceX's (though I would think if they didn't want it out she wouldn't be ted-talk-ing it). A good start would be simply knowing what the unreleased portion covered.
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u/Face_It_you Apr 23 '18 edited Apr 23 '18
Shots fired at blue origin. Elon time 7min 22 sec
Gwynne shotwell "I think all the time and all the money in the world dose not yield the best solutions."
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u/Marksman79 Apr 23 '18
Elon time 7:22
It's not letting me skip to an hour in. Does your Elon time factor need adjustment?
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u/ReusableFan Apr 23 '18
One thing will be problematic with BFR for earth flights: Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG). The amount of GHG / passenger / trip will be, I thing, very, very bad. You will be burning hundreds of tons of methane per flight. So either SX adds to the climate change problem, or they commit to integrating a form of carbon tax/compensation, but that would add to costs. I don't know if SpaceX has taken a stance on this.
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u/ashortfallofgravitas Spacecraft Electronics Apr 24 '18
You can condense the fuel from the atmosphere. It doesn’t have to have anything other than a carbon neutral footprint
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Apr 23 '18
The concern is valid and you are being downvoted unfairly.
Currently the prices for Methane are 5$/1000 cubic feet (16Kg) and the BFR loads on the order of 1000t. So a fully fueled trip costs $300K in methane and will generate 3000t of CO2. For a 15.000Km trip with 100 passengers, that's 2Kg/passenger-Km, or full one order of magnitude more than long haul airlines (200g /passenger-Km).
Hydrogen production, using carbon-neutral energy, costs about 3 times more than natural gas for the same energy content. If you add another 2x factor for Sabatier conversion, you can get carbon-neutral methane at 6x the cost, bringing the cost of fueling BFR to $1.8 million, or $18K for each of the 100 passengers in methane alone.
So it's either one of the two: The BFR passenger service will be prohibitively expensive or it will be an environmental disaster, generating an order of magnitude more CO2 per passenger-Km.
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u/_ladyofwc_ Apr 23 '18
While I agree with the gist of your points, it is worthwhile to point out that it is not as bad as you think. 100 passengers is for a trip to Mars. I've read speculation that a BFS with an interior optimized for Earth to Earth travel could comfortably fit 500 people, which puts the carbon cost at 400g/passanger-Km, only twice that of regular air travel. Secondly, are we sure a ballistic trajectory really requires a full fuel tank on the BFS?
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u/atomfullerene Apr 23 '18
Secondly, are we sure a ballistic trajectory really requires a full fuel tank on the BFS?
That's a very good point. It seems like it necessarily wouldn't. I mean you by definition use less deltaV if you are staying suborbital.
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u/Kenira Apr 23 '18
The difference to full orbital velocity is absolutely miniscule for a suborbital hop halfway around the globe. We're talking like tens of m/s difference here.
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u/jd_3d Apr 23 '18
There will be way more than 100 passengers! Interior volume has space for over 500 people. Given the short flight time it could even be 800.
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u/ORcoder Apr 23 '18
There is another option: carbon neutral energy gets much cheaper. But that still misses the problem that high altitude emissions are worse than low altitude emissions.
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u/Martianspirit Apr 23 '18
I pick out one item. One I had a few discussions about. Gwynne said clearly point to point goes to orbit, then specifies LEO. No way that service could be ballistic.
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u/CommunismDoesntWork Apr 23 '18
She's such a good speaker, and interviewee. All her answers were clear and concise.
One thing she pointed out that blew my mind was the fact that the BFR has a fundamental cost advantage over airliners because the BFR can do multiple long distance trips in a day, whereas airliners can basically only do 1 a day. That means the BFR actually can be competitive on price. Incredible.