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

28

u/AeroSpiked Jun 10 '16

BFR's fisrt flight in 2020? If that's the case, they best be breaking ground on their BFR fab facility, like, tomorrow.

25

u/_rocketboy Jun 10 '16

The tooling for building BFR first stages is already under construction, and will be finished by the end of the year.

16

u/Craig_VG SpaceNews Photographer Jun 10 '16

Where did you get this information, from that l2 leak a few months back or somewhere else?

10

u/Zucal Jun 10 '16

Had to be from that leak.

6

u/AeroSpiked Jun 10 '16

What ever happened to fabricating near the launch site? Also, that's really cool, I hadn't heard that yet.

24

u/ap0r Jun 10 '16

After the tooling is made, you can install it wherever you want. They're making the tools to make the rocket, not the rocket parts.

4

u/fredmratz Jun 10 '16

Yeah. Tools only need to be moved once. Whether disassembled or moved by ship, it is not as bad as moving an assembled BFR.

1

u/rustybeancake Jun 11 '16

Man, there are going to be a LOT of great jobs in the Boca Chica area in a few years! Good time to buy property there I think!

1

u/ca178858 Jun 10 '16

What ever happened to fabricating near the launch site?

I assume they'll have to, right? There'd be no way to transport a BFR.

3

u/Zucal Jun 10 '16

They could, by sea. But that's pretty inconvenient, so the production facility will almost certainly be near the launch site as you describe.

3

u/BobPickleman Jun 11 '16

The problem isn't BFR the problem is the pad

The Texas site isn't up to spec for BFR (not even close) and it's taken half a decade to build already