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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
On Thursday night, SpaceX founder Elon Musk shared photos of Raptor rocket engines that recently left the company's factory in Hawthorne, Calif., headed out to be tested at its facility near McGregor, Texas. "Preparing to fire the Starship Raptor engine," he said by way of a caption on Twitter.
The photos were interesting, but Musk had additional comments about the engine that revealed much about how the company is proceeding with overall design of the vehicle it will power. SpaceX's approach seems focused on keeping costs down and moving as quickly as possible towards a launch of the Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket in the early 2020s.
For example, Musk said, "Initially making one 200 metric ton thrust engine common across ship & booster to reach the Moon as fast as possible. Next versions will split to vacuum-optimized (380+ sec Isp) & sea-level thrust optimized (~250 ton)."
This comment is notable for a couple of reasons. First of all, the company appears to have decided to streamline the Raptor engine to a single design that will power both the rocket at liftoff, and the spaceship in the upper atmosphere and outer space. It will take less time to develop, test, and qualify a single engine. It will also cost less money.
Additionally, Musk notes that the goal is "to reach the Moon as fast as possible." The company still appears to be focused on lunar orbital flights, such as the #dearMoon project for Japanese businessman Yusaku Maezawa, as the first missions for Starship.
There is an added benefit to this approach: for the next two decades, NASA appears likely to be highly interested in developing infrastructure near and on the Moon. By flying Starship on early test flights to the same destination, SpaceX has a far greater chance to win government contracts for the delivery of cargo, and potentially astronauts, to the Moon. Heretofore, neither NASA nor the US military has shown much if any interest in SpaceX's ambitious rocket and spacecraft.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 03 2019, @04:42AM (6 children)
Seems a little generous to refer to craft that will remain within the Earth/moon system as "starships". You might as well refer to a pile of grains as a supercomputer because you can use them to count, so, y'know, close enough, right? If things work out, in a few design generations the SpaceX rocket engines might lead to something that can be used for interplanetary travel, but starships? Not likely within our lifetimes.
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Sunday February 03 2019, @05:26AM (1 child)
That was basically Musk's response to your exact criticism.
The name doesn't mean much. It was basically a pivot away from "Big Fucking Rocket" which is too naughty, so they picked something generically cool. Although I expect they will refer to the individual rockets by codenames [wikipedia.org] like "BFR v1.0 B0001".
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(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday February 03 2019, @06:55AM
You need to lay off the dope, Musk.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday February 03 2019, @05:37AM (1 child)
Agreed. It might even be called "presumptuous". Every time I see that name, I just cringe. The uninformed, uneducated public probably thinks it is going to the stars. Ehh, maybe it will. When we've established a galactic federation of human populated planets, maybe they'll come back for that "starship", and put it in a museum.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Monday February 04 2019, @09:42AM
Someone has forced him to change it from the excellent "BFR", so he's picked something deliberately family-friendly can't-be-misconstrued and bloody (mindedly) ridiculous.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday February 06 2019, @06:11PM (1 child)
Yeah, it's over the top, but is it really any worse than, say, a Ford Fusion, Chrysler Concorde, or 4-door BMW Gran Coupe?
Heck, it even has some slight legitimate claim to the name - it may not be the ship that will actually take us to the stars, but it is intended to be the one that lets us take the first steps on that journey, expanding humanity beyond just the Earth onto other worlds. Once we've mastered that, traveling to other stars is just a matter of energy and patience (though new propulsion technology would certainly help).
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday February 06 2019, @06:13PM
Also, who said anything about it being confined to the Earth-Moon system? The early prototypes maybe, but the final version with proper vacuum engines is intended to reach pretty much anywhere in the solar system.