The Big Effing Rocket

October 2nd, 2017 at 10:33:02 AM permalink
Nareed
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 346
Posts: 12545
Musk's latest idea is the BFR, which does stand for Big F****g Rocket.

What is it, well, a Big Effing Rocket. But that¿s not the point. the point is Musk wants to discontinue the Falcon 9, the Falcon 9 Heavy (still to be launched) and the Dragon capsule (launched several times with supplies for the ISS), and replace all that with the BFR.

It will launch satellites, take people and cargo into orbit, take people and cargo to the Moon or Mars, and most radically (really? be used in point-to-point suborbital travel.

The last notion is getting a lot of attention. This is good for suborbital travel. Musk is capable of what I call the Jobs Effect. It means taking an existing idea and getting people interested or invested in it.

While I support the idea of suborbital passenger travel, I don't think a rocket is the way to go. For one thing, rockets are difficult to launch on a regular basis, much less on a daily basis. A successful suborbital transport company would have to make hundreds of rocket launches each day.

Rockets are also fickle, fragile (by design!) and dangerous. They can't operate near populated areas. in SpaceX's promo video, the rockets are seen launching from off-shore platforms, so there's an implicit acknowledgment of this. Even so, Musk had better have a reliable escape system and range safety officers <shudder>.

I see something like Virgin Galactic's Spaceship Two as a more viable alternative, even if flight times would be longer. I don't necessarily mean a carrier plane and dropped rocket ship. A plane with a hybrid jet/rocket engine would work as well, or with two sets of engines.

We'll see.
Donald Trump is a one-term LOSER
October 2nd, 2017 at 10:54:42 AM permalink
kenarman
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 14
Posts: 4470
I have laugh at the times of under an hour the media report for the travel. Still have to get too and from the floating launch platform and on and off the rocket. I am sure that add-on time would be longer than the current add-on times you need for conventional plane and airport travel. His client base is probably already on private jets and has already eliminate most of that time with a helicopter to the roof of the office and smaller airports.
"but if you make yourselves sheep, the wolves will eat you." Benjamin Franklin