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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

At a press conference at Hawthorne, CA, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced the first planned private passengers to travel into deep space (lunar orbit). Yusaku Maezawa [wikipedia.org], 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 (MZ) plans to invite 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. The "project" is called #dearMoon [dearmoon.earth].

Yusaku Maezawa approached SpaceX and made a contribution to the BFR project that will pay for a "substantial" amount of the development costs (possibly more than $100 million). During the Q&A, Musk estimated that the entire development of BFR would cost around $5 billion, or somewhere between $2 billion and $10 billion. Other potential sources of funding for BFR development include SpaceX's top priority, Crew Dragon flights to the International Space Station, as well as satellite launches and Starlink satellite broadband service.

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 volume of the spaceship (BFS) portion was estimated at around 1,000-1,100 m³, 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 [wikipedia.org], 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 was listed as 100 metric tons, 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, 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 hops/hover 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 the planned crewed lunar orbit joyride, passengers may only have to experience 2.5-3G during ascent, instead of around 5G. Depending on how the BFS returns to Earth, passengers could experience 3G or 6G 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 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 spend in the vicinity of the Moon (the flyby).

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[Unconfirmed detail: Was Maezawa one of the 2 planned Falcon Heavy passengers?]

Previously: SpaceX Plans to Fly a Passenger Around the Moon Using BFR [soylentnews.org]

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