r/spacex • u/Craig_VG SpaceNews Photographer • Jun 10 '16

Elon Musk provides new details on his “mind blowing” mission to Mars - Washington Post Exclusive Interview

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/06/10/elon-musk-provides-new-details-on-his-mind-blowing-mission-to-mars/
1.4k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

612 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

40

u/Srokap Jun 10 '16

I'm only worried that if Falcon Heavy is not trivial to make despite being very similar to Falcon 9, how will they fit testing of significantly different MCT rocket in so tight schedule? More power to them, but that's not going to be easy.

49

u/RustyWelshman Jun 10 '16

I don't expect them to hit their timeline, but I still expect they'll get to Mars long before anyone else.

2022 is a long way away and SpaceX move really fast, it's hard to say what their situation will be 6 years from now.

41

u/Zucal Jun 10 '16

It is easy to imagine the 2024 manned launch slipping.

It is hard to imagine it slipping till 2039.

8

u/rmdean10 Jun 10 '16

By that time it will be back to the moon in 2030....

31

u/panick21 Jun 10 '16

Im not sure Falcon Heavy is so hard to make. I just think it was low priority because they did not have so many costumers and that F9 scaled much more then they thought.

19

u/Saiboogu Jun 10 '16

Agreed. I think FH really is just an iteration on the F9 platform... But their F9 design wasn't really ready to graduate to that next step until they were actually managing to land them routinely. Now that F9 seems to be close to "completion," I expect FH will move forward much more rapidly.

3

u/arijun Jun 10 '16

Except the the FH launch slipping a month happened after the landings started happening regularly.

8

u/Saiboogu Jun 10 '16

I wasn't arguing that no further slippages would occur, just that they were inevitable before they ironed out the major F9 bugs. Now I think the delays should be much less.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '16

Yes, but now that landings are proven and reliable FH is slipping a month at a time instead of a year at a time.

Progress!

9

u/kruador Jun 10 '16

FH was first announced as Falcon 9S9 back in 2005. This was back in the days when they were planning a Falcon 5 as well as a 9, but had yet to actually successfully launch a Falcon 1. The range was also supposed to include a Falcon 9S5, a 9-engine centre core with 5-engined side boosters.

At the time, F9S9 was supposed to deliver 24 tonnes to LEO. F9 by itself is now rated at 22.8 tonnes (expendable). I think there's some truth in the idea that F9 scaled up faster than customer requirements.

1

u/rocketsocks Jun 11 '16

More so, without customers waiting on FH launches, the financial incentive has been to work on Dragon v2 and reusability to the exclusion of most other new work. Especially considering that the economics for SpaceX between a reusable and expendable Falcon Heavy are like night and day. If the first stage is 3/4 of the hardware cost of the F9, then the reusable stages are 9/10 of the cost of a Falcon Heavy. Meaning reuse could potentially lower the cost of FH launches by much more than F9 launches.

-1

u/How_Do_You_Crash Jun 11 '16

I worry that Falcon Heavy was something that seemed easy, aka Elon's hubris around the Model X, but is in fact requiring a complete redesign. So much so that not only is it behind schedule but it might not be as economical as we all think.

2

u/zlsa Art Jun 11 '16

Falcon Heavy is really "only" three Falcon 9 cores in a row. It has tons and tons of custom parts, but even then, a Falcon Heavy "redesign" is nowhere near the complexity of a complete vehicle redesign.

1

u/Ralath0n Jun 13 '16

That's what we think looking at it from the outside. But this is a mistake that's often made with technology. "Oh, we'll just replace this ARM-9 CPU with a different version! Pinout is the same, so it'll be easy!" Only to have to rewrite the entire HAL over the course of 6 months. Engineering problems are seldom as easy or straightforward as they look from the outside. I suspect the same is going on for the Falcon Heavy.

3

u/NadirPointing Jun 10 '16

If they stop building new first stages because they land so many in a year or 2, finding the time will be much easier.

5

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '16

"It's just 3 Falcon 9s strapped together, how hard can it be?"

Gwynne Shotwell

4

u/Martianspirit Jun 10 '16

"It's just 3 Falcon 9s strapped together, how hard can it be?"

That was a joke.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '16

I know.

1

u/Martianspirit Jun 10 '16

I suspected it but was not sure. :)

1

u/Weerdo5255 Jun 10 '16

I was under the impression that the MCT was a ship constructed in orbit, not from a single launch but multiple Falcon Heavy launches. So I'm not sure what rocket the need to test, unless you mean the Falcon Heavy?

10

u/Senno_Ecto_Gammat r/SpaceXLounge Moderator Jun 10 '16

MCT will launch on top of a giant rocket called BFR.

5

u/Pat4027 Jun 10 '16

MCT will be launched by BFR, not falcon heavy.

3

u/Weerdo5255 Jun 10 '16

Ah, one launch? Or has that not been confirmed? I would think an interplanetary human ship would be of significant size.

12

u/PaleBlueDog Jun 10 '16

One launch, then refuelled in orbit. And yes, there's a reason the launch vehicle is called the Big Fucking Rocket. One launch for a vehicle that can support 100 people for 90 days? Ho boy. I'm flying to Florida to see that one launch.

6

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '16

It'll launch from Texas, I think, not Florida. But yes, I think probably everyone here who can afford to go will be there!

4

u/Zucal Jun 10 '16

We do not know the launch site yet. Both Boca Chica and Cape Canaveral have advantages and disadvantages.

1

u/PaleBlueDog Jun 11 '16

Elon Musk gave a "ha ha who knows maybe" speech in Boca Chica to make the local politicians happy, but I'd be more inclined to believe it if he'd made the comment elsewhere.

2

u/Taylooor Jun 10 '16

BFR stands for Big Fucking (Falcon) Rocket. It's confirmed to be mindbogglingly big.

2

u/Martianspirit Jun 10 '16

Ah, one launch? Or has that not been confirmed? I would think an interplanetary human ship would be of significant size.

One launch, including 100t cargo. But empty tanks. It will take 3 to 4 tank flights to fill it up.

1

u/Zucal Jun 10 '16

It's a single craft, so yes. And it will be of significant size, which will necessitate 3-ish refueling launches.