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During a press conference at his company's Hawthorne, CA headquarters, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced the first planned private passenger to travel into deep space and around the Moon. Yusaku Maezawa, a billionaire fashion entrepreneur and art collector, paid an undisclosed amount to become one of the first people to fly on a SpaceX Big Falcon Rocket (BFR), with a target date of 2023. If the launch happens, he won't be going alone. Maezawa (aka "MZ") plans to invite at least six to eight artists to accompany him on a journey around the Moon. The passengers chosen may be painters, sculptors, musicians, fashion designers, dancers, film directors, architects, etc. and are intended to represent the Earth and participate in an art exhibition after returning to Earth. Musk himself has also been invited. The project is called #dearMoon.
Yusaku Maezawa approached SpaceX and made a contribution that will pay for a "non-trivial" amount of the BFR's development costs. During the Q&A, Musk estimated that the entire development of BFR would cost around $5 billion, or no less than $2 billion and no more than $10 billion. Other potential sources of funding for BFR development include SpaceX's top priority, Crew Dragon flights to the International Space Station (ISS), as well as satellite launches and Starlink satellite broadband service.
Maezawa (along with a guest) was a previously announced anonymous customer for a Falcon Heavy ride around the Moon. SpaceX currently has no plans to human-rate the Falcon Heavy. The switch from Falcon Heavy to BFR will substantially increase the maximum number of passengers and comfort level attainable on a nearly week-long mission, since the Crew Dragon 2 has a pressurized volume of just 10 m3, about 1% of the volume of the BFS.
Some changes have been made to the BFR's design. The height of the full rocket (spaceship and booster) will now be around 118 meters, from 106. Incidentally, the Space Launch System Block 2 Cargo will be 111.25 meters tall. The pressurized volume of the spaceship (BFS) portion was estimated at around 1,000-1,100 m3, greater than that of the ISS, and up from a previous estimate of 825 m3. The booster now has 3 prominent fins, two of which can rotate. The third does not move and has no aerodynamic function whatsoever; it serves as the third landing leg. One major motivating factor behind the redesign? Aesthetics, according to Musk. This is supposed to be the final iteration of the design in terms of broad architectural decisions.
Early in the presentation, BFR's payload capacity to low-Earth orbit and other destinations (with in-orbit refueling) was listed as "over 100" metric tons with full reuse, down from the 150 metric tons that has been talked about since 2017. This appears to be due in part to the use of seven sea-level Raptor engines on the BFS. Two of the rear cargo sections around these engines could be removed and the engines can be switched out for vacuum Raptor engines in another iteration of BFS, which would presumably have a higher payload capacity. Two, and possibly as many as four, of the seven engines can fail without compromising the BFS's ability to land.
"Grasshopper"-style vertical takeoff and landing tests are still planned for 2019, at the company's South Texas Launch Site near Brownsville, TX. High velocity flights and tests of the booster are planned for 2020. The first orbital flights could happen around 2021, and may launch from a floating platform. Musk indicated that there would be several uncrewed tests of the BFR before any humans are sent on it, including an uncrewed flight around the Moon.
Due to the low amount of payload on a cislunar joyride, passengers may only have to experience 2.5-3 g during ascent, instead of around 5 g. Depending on how the BFS returns to Earth, passengers could experience 3 g or 6 g on re-entry. Although the exact mission profile has not yet been decided, the BFS will probably "skim" the surface of the Moon before returning to a higher altitude, so that the passengers can get a much closer look at the Moon's surface than what is portrayed in the current flight plan. The total flight time is estimated at just over 5 days and 23 hours, with around 31 hours spent in the vicinity of the Moon (the flyby).
SpaceX press conference (1h11m44s).
Also at Ars Technica, The Verge (alt), and Fox News.
Previously: SpaceX Plans to Fly a Passenger Around the Moon Using BFR
(Score: 2) by CZB on Tuesday September 18 2018, @03:31PM (14 children)
At least this crop of billionaires are building cool stuff!
Now how is it that Elon's rocket crew is making more progress than all the other rich guy rocket ventures? Are his guys smarter? Got lucky? Willing to take more risks?
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday September 18 2018, @03:49PM (7 children)
SpaceX got a lot of money from uncle sam, which helped, and they have progressed a lot in the field
But make no mistake that this announcment is not progression. the BFR does not exist. Maybe one day it will, I hope it does. I hope that this tourist does a trip round the moon. But this isn't the first time spacex have announced a lunar trip -- last time they said it would launch in 2018.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday September 18 2018, @03:58PM
This tourist was the previously planned tourist. They moved it from Falcon Heavy to BFR, and there are a lot of great reasons for doing that.
As for it not existing, they have showed off images of its construction, and are promising the first BFS tests next year, which is a lot sooner than this lunar trip.
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(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday September 18 2018, @04:21PM (4 children)
Yep, and you should always add 50-100% to Musk's timeline estimates to compensate for his optimism. Add that in and they'd be well on track to deliver, if not for the fact that they basically abandoned the Falcon Heavy once they realized they could scale down the ITS to something that could still get the job done while being small and cheap enough to profitably replace even the normal Falcon 9 launches. At which point the Heavy became nothing more than a stop-gap to use existing hardware to establish themselves as a player in the sparse high-payload market until the BFR could take over.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday September 18 2018, @04:30PM (3 children)
> Yep, and you should always add 50-100% to Musk's timeline estimates
That is pretty much true for any project on this scale. Factor 2 contingency in cost and time is even quite conservative. See, for space examples, SLS, JWT; but one could extend beyond the space sector to LHC, SNS, UK's crossrail and HS2, etc etc.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday September 18 2018, @04:56PM (1 child)
A major difference is that Musk is typically not being paid more when he's late, unlike most of your list.
He really needs to master the art of profitable stagnation, instead of constantly rocking the boat.
> High velocity flights and tests of the booster are planned for 2020. The first orbital flights could happen around 2021
"Mine will most likely take off a lot earlier than yours."
> pressurized volume of the spaceship (BFS) portion was estimated at around 1,000-1,100 m3, greater than that of the ISS
"Mine's bigger than yours, yet it will go much farther"
> full rocket (spaceship and booster) will now be around 118 meters, from 106.
> Incidentally, the Space Launch System Block 2 Cargo will be 111.25 meters tall.
"Mine's bigger than anybody's."
> [traditional capsule] Crew Dragon 2 has a pressurized volume of just 10 m3
"In summary, delays or not, either it blows up, or you all look like chumps pouring all those billions into the SLS boondoggle. Prepare your prayers and your resumes."
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday September 18 2018, @08:51PM
> A major difference is that Musk is typically not being paid more when he's late, unlike most of your list.
Those darn folks at CERN, just trying to slow down the LHC build to shred more pork from the bone. Wait to see how much they can get out of the current upgrade cycle!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Tuesday September 18 2018, @05:13PM
Agreed. It's a rare large-scale project of any sort that manages to deliver on time, even without the presence of "cost-plus" perverse incentives. I think Musk gets so much grief in large part because he makes big public announcements at the "the engineers are starting to think about it seriously" stage, whereas most endeavors aren't publicized at least until production has begun, and possibly not until a great deal of tests and revisions have already been completed.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Tuesday September 18 2018, @04:50PM
Some of SpaceX competitors have long gotten money from uncle sam too. Yet SpaceX made such huge leaps so quickly.
One answer to the GP post is that some of SpaceX competitors operate on the
pork pluscost plus model.I for one am hoping that SLS gets off the ground in time to send a mission to mars before the SpaceX colony already on mars can roll out the red carpet for Orion capsule.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday September 18 2018, @03:56PM (3 children)
You don't stay a billionaire by spending your own money. SpaceX scored lucrative contracts even when it wasn't clear that they would be able to deliver. As Musk noted at the press conference, SpaceX's first three Falcon 1 flights were failures, and the fourth was finally successful. Then NASA gave them a launch contract. If that test flight had been a failure, that would have been the end of SpaceX. But they still hadn't flown a Falcon 9, and landing and reusing rockets multiple times was a distant dream.
Compared to old players like Boeing/ULA, SpaceX may have been helped by starting from a clean slate and relying more heavily on computers to design and simulate rockets. They also operated with the goal of creating cost-efficient rockets, rather than cost-plus pork contracts. And now that they have a working rocket that can become cheaper over time with partial reusability, they get to pocket the difference, including the difference between their rocket and competitors (NASA pays way more than $60 million for ISS cargo launches).
SpaceX does take risks. Attempting landings when it was unclear whether it would be achievable, modifying the rocket design for increased reusability, "load-and-go" fueling, etc.
The most directly comparable venture to SpaceX is Bezos's Blue Origin, since they are actually looking at the super-heavy launch business, unlike Virgin Galactic or Bigelow Aerospace. Blue Origin was founded before SpaceX. Their slowness is alluded to by their own motto: Gradatim Ferociter, or "Step by Step, Ferociously". They have taken a token milestone away from SpaceX, but the real fight is going to be with Falcon 9 and especially the BFR. New Glenn or New Armstrong could target 100 tons to LEO or higher, with at least partial reusability.
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(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday September 18 2018, @06:00PM (2 children)
SpaceX has certainly taken some big risks, but I'm not sure that the landing attempts are among them. After all - what was risked, exactly? The rockets were going to be destroyed anyway, so all they really risked was wasting the engineering and production time of the landing-specific components, along with a relatively cheap and sturdy landing barge. Risking a small percentage of profits in pursuit of much larger profits is practically no risk at all.
Also, what token milestone did Blue Origin take from SpaceX? The only thing I can think of offhand was the "first" successful landing - years after Falcon 1 had already done the same. Granted F1 was just a testing platform while the New Shepard is... I'm not sure exactly. Expensive amusement park ride?
Blue Origin is certainly taking the safe route though, and I hope it eventually pays off for them. SpaceX could use some real competition.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday September 18 2018, @06:24PM (1 child)
It is a risk because they had to devote company resources to developing the reusable capability, building drone ships, etc. with no guarantee that any of it would pay off. The stuff needed to land the rocket also added to the mass.
At least this:
https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/22/10815800/blue-origin-rocket-launch- [theverge.com]
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(Score: 3, Informative) by Immerman on Tuesday September 18 2018, @07:40PM
Sure, but it's a risk of lower profit margins, nothing that jeopardizes the company, or the rocket. And I seem to recall them leaving out the landing system when that extra payload was actually needed. I suppose I just don't think of that in the same terms as the sort of company-gambling behavior usually considered as risky. "We're betting the company on the success of X" is risky "We'll slow down development of systems that are already working well, in a market where we have no real competition, to develop technology that will radically increase profit margins" is the sort of thing any non-stagnating company would jump on.
That's right. I forgot about that one. Though I have to wonder about the article calling the New Shepard a "commercial rocket" - have they successfully sold... anything yet? Though I'll grant them that it's a lot more refined than you'd expect for a test platform. They're certainly at least *targetting* a commercial application for it, even if it's not something rockets are typically used for.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Immerman on Tuesday September 18 2018, @04:13PM
A big part is probably first-mover advantage.
SpaceX was a serious project before any of the "competition" was much more than a hobby project. I suspect that's part of the reason Blue Origin targeted the suborbital tourist market rather than doing anything useful, they'd be nothing but an also-ran in that market. By the time they got off the ground SpaceX was well on their way to orbit. By the time their current rocket was undergoing serious test flights, SpaceX was already launching commercial payloads to orbit and was mastering the art of landing the first stage.
And once they went commercial, SpaceX had the advantage of being dramatically cheaper than any other launch options - they could undercut all other launch services while still maintaining huge profit margins to fund further development. The next commercial competition will have to be able to undercut SpaceX launch costs if they want to be able to use their profits to fund development, and that just doesn't look realistic for a rocket company just starting out. There was really only one window of opportunity for a cost-conscious company to undercut the globally political-pork-acclimated launch business.
Incidentally though, the Blue Origin looks an awful lot like their initial plans for a second stage rocket, so they may also have be positioning it as a second stage vehicle to launch atop a much more powerful first stage. That remains to be seen, but tourism would seem to be the only chance there is of operating a profitable launch business now that all the easy money has been taken out of the orbital launch market. Of course, if BFR manages to deliver on its goal of lower overall launch costs than the Falcon, that could well destroy the suborbital tourism market for them before it even gets off the ground. If you're buying a space tourism ticket, would you rather go suborbital in a little passenger capsule for a few minutes, or a bigger-than-the-space-station passenger liner where you could fool around in free-fall for hours or days?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by khallow on Tuesday September 18 2018, @04:59PM
This. We need to keep in mind that Musk was able to get the pick of the litter. "I'm going to launch rockets. You in?" is a strong selling point in a world with a lot of skilled rocket designers and not a lot of opportunities to use those skills. That world is changing now.