Elon Musk Proposes Using SpaceX’s “BFR” to Travel around Earth

Megalith

Megalith

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A rocket built for traveling throughout our solar system could revolutionize travel on Earth, according to Elon Musk. Using a "BFR" flying at a max speed of 18,000 mph, he says we could fly anywhere on Earth in under an hour. Musk revealed the plan during his speech at the 68th International Astronautical Congress 2017 in Adelaide, Australia, where he also showed SpaceX's plans for lunar and Mars missions.

The BFR (yes, it stands for what you think it stands for) is SpaceX's next rocket after the Falcon Heavy that Musk said the company hopes will launch by the end of this year. Unlike all of its previous rockets, this one will be fully reusable, and capable of refueling in space, which is key for his plans to do things like resupply the ISS, land on the moon, and start sending missions to Mars by 2022. With refueling in space, the BFR can make trips to the Moon's surface without needing any fuel production there, enabling the creation of "Moon Base Alpha."
 
Oh wow yet another amazing Elon Musk idea... one that surely never existed before! </sarcasm font>

Yeah sorry, the sub-orbital rocket/plane idea to get around the globe fast is hardly a new idea, the reason why it's never been done is because it would cost too much fuel.
 
Flight tests by the end of this year... absolutely amazing. NASA has been 'working' on Ares I and then SLS for years and what do they have to show for it? One flight test of the Ares I's extended SRB.

I don't see how anyone can criticize Musk at this point, SpaceX has already done what the rest of the aerospace industry said couldn't be done with their reusable designs. Where did all of NASA's SLS money go?
 
I read a sci fi book a long time ago that talked about something like this for quickly deploying special forces troops all over the globe in like an hour. Struggling to remember what it was.
 
Yes the idea may not be original, but he's doing more than just talking about it, he's actually going to try it.

So why some of you criticize him for it, he's doing more than you are with any idea you've ever had. And he's doing it basically with his own funding in timescales unmatched since Apollo. So cut him a break. Geez...
 
Accursed said:
Yes the idea may not be original, but he's doing more than just talking about it, he's actually going to try it.

So why some of you criticize him for it, he's doing more than you are with any idea you've ever had. And he's doing it basically with his own funding in timescales unmatched since Apollo. So cut him a break. Geez...
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Ummm the reason I criticize him is listed in my criticism, it would take too much fuel to put a rocket into suborbital flight just to get somewhere quick.

And yeah he's totally doing more than me, but his net worth is somewhere north of 20 billion, my net worth is significantly less than that. Guess what I criticize NFL players all the time too, not because I can do what they do, but I can see where there are flaws in their game and I don't have to be able to do what they do.
 
Yea, leave poor Elon alone... though he did develop a device that turns negative internet criticism into positive proto-fuel for his auxiliary neural mod/implant, so makes no difference I bet :p
 
buhbuhfet said:
rockets don't work in a vacuum, BFR what a joke
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This is too naive of a statement even for a troll...

Please see Newton's third law of motion - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton's_laws_of_motion#Newton.27s_third_law

Hell, it doesn't even take more than a plastic bottle and a bicycle pump. Compress air into the bottle then take the pump's nozzle off and you'll feel the force of air pushing against the bottle. Rockets add more force by design but at its simplest the bottle is an perfect repeatable experiment.

If you truly believe what you're saying.... it's just sad how horribly science is taught in the US
 
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sfsuphysics said:
Ummm the reason I criticize him is listed in my criticism, it would take too much fuel to put a rocket into suborbital flight just to get somewhere quick.
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But he explained how he was going to make cheap fuel for his rockets, with the R&D from the refueling system he needs to build on Mars; and how it's merely a technological challenge, not a resource challenge because oxygen and methane are cheap.

sfsuphysics said:
And yeah he's totally doing more than me, but his net worth is somewhere north of 20 billion, my net worth is significantly less than that.
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But he started with $28,000 and made those billions himself.
 
You can't even get trough security in an hour. They already make you arrive at the airport 2-3 hours before departure. To me that's part of the journey, a part that I loath, I'd rather drive a car for 10 hours, than sit at an airport for 3 then fly 2.
 
M76 said:
You can't even get trough security in an hour. They already make you arrive at the airport 2-3 hours before departure. To me that's part of the journey, a part that I loath, I'd rather drive a car for 10 hours, than sit at an airport for 3 then fly 2.
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Same, I'd rather drive everywhere since I love driving but this seems like a cool idea for transatlantic travel. Until I can drive my car underwater I'll have to settle for air travel when visiting Europe...
 
Cyphorz said:
Same, I'd rather drive everywhere since I love driving but this seems like a cool idea for transatlantic travel. Until I can drive my car underwater I'll have to settle for air travel when visiting Europe...
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Just grab a couple beverages at the airport and fly business or premium economy if you can (worth the extra cost imo). It's not that bad. Reducing the flight down to an hour sounds enticing tho!
 
Time is money for some people and that's why I can see this being a thing. Initially, I see the cost being somewhat of a premium and only for those of the upper class (Like the Tesla Roadster was when Tesla first came to be.) However, with SpaceX also developing and refining the fueling system, I can see the costs coming down after a while to support the middle class. Methane isn't hard to produce (It being a byproduct of Landfills and can be produced in a Biogas Generator) and oxygen is plentiful. IMHO, Elon Musk is at the top of my list for persons who may actually change the way we live our lives and deserves a little respect for that (Having the idea is one thing, making it practical is hard if not harder.)
 
As someone who does 15 hours flights a couple times a month, I would really be looking forward to this.
 
And this would get around the problem that the Concorde had? The reason the Concorde only flew Trans-Atlantic was because sonic booms are outlawed over populated areas.

Anything going over the speed of sound will make a sonic boom everywhere it goes. It's not a one time thing as it passes the threshold of the speed of sound, it always occuring the entire time something is going faster then sound waves can travel.







 
Wake me up when Elon comes up with an idea that doesn't rely on massive taxpayer funding. :rolleyes:
 
westrock2000 said:
And this would get around the problem that the Concorde had? The reason the Concorde only flew Trans-Atlantic was because sonic booms are outlawed over populated areas.

Anything going over the speed of sound will make a sonic boom everywhere it goes. It's not a one time thing as it passes the threshold of the speed of sound, it always occuring the entire time something is going faster then sound waves can travel.
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But if it's mostly going that fast above the atmosphere (as it would need to,) it won't generate sonic booms, except in a short span of time right after launch and right before landing.

That doesn't negate many of the other problems...

They show the launch and landing occurring fairly near major cities. Rocket launches are *LOUD*. The larger the rocket, the louder it is. Since this is larger than the Saturn V, it would be louder than the Saturn V - and it rattled windows dozens of miles away. These launch/landing barges would have to be quite a ways out to sea. They claim one possible location is Toronto - I don't think Lake Ontario is big enough that the launch could be far enough from a populated area to be safe to launch! Get far enough from Toronto, and you're too close to Rochester.

So while the flight itself may only be 30-60 minutes, the transfer to land will take a while longer. Yeah, for the ultra-long flights, it would still be worth it, but for the shorter ones they list (Los Angeles to Toronto, for example,) I'm not sure you would actually save much time.

Then there's the whole "cost" factor. BFR will use *WAAAAAY* more fuel than a jet airliner, even for the ultra-long-distance flights. London to Sydney? An A380 uses about 170,000 gallons (about 1.7 million pounds, about 570 tons) of fuel to carry 525 passengers that distance. The BFR would use 240 tons of fuel and 860 tons of liquid oxygen to carry... probably the same number of people. (They say up to about 200 people in Mars-transfer cabins. I imagine for a 30-60 minute flight, they would cram many more in, in airline-style seats, rather than cabins.)

Even with cheaper fuel, it's still going to be expensive. If we're lucky, it will be "as cheap" as the Concorde.

So... Great idea, we've been waiting for "spaceplanes" to make intercontinental flights short for decades now. I'm just worried that it isn't feasible from a logistical perspective. I mean, just how awesome would it be to fly from Los Angeles to Tokyo on a craft that the same craft could fly to the space station... or the moon... or Mars... or Titan?
 
Commander Shepard said:
Wake me up when Elon comes up with an idea that doesn't rely on massive taxpayer funding. :rolleyes:
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Word, I dont want any of my taxpayer money to go towards advancing society.

Elon Musk is a joke. He will never fly, land, or reuse that dumb rocket, electric cars are dumb and going nowhere, and solar power is a big fad. DEY TOOK OUR JERBS amirite?
 
0neTwo said:
Word, I dont want any of my taxpayer money to go towards advancing society.

Elon Musk is a joke. He will never fly, land, or reuse that dumb rocket, electric cars are dumb and going nowhere, and solar power is a big fad. DEY TOOK OUR JERBS amirite?
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All Elon does with taxpayer money is build enormous factories and fill them with tens of thousands of workers, workers who earn far less money than oil and coal industry execs. The government should be giving tax breaks and funding to oil execs instead! Those are the jobs we need to make America rich again!
 
buhbuhfet said:
aha and how does that apply in a vacuum?

oh it blows air? so cool rite? thanks for your scientific input, i lolz serioz
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And this is why you fail. An inability to critically think. Yes, even though the sound of this statement is right at your grade level, blowing air does work in a vacuum.

More in-depth to destroy your argument even more. Try the bottle experiment in the water-filled bathtub - pressurize the bottle with air, submerge it in the water and watch it move forward on its own. We now have proven that Newton's third law works in different pressures.

So even if your idiotic assumption that rockets require something 'equivalent to air' to move in was true (again it's not), space is not a perfect vacuum.

Near earth outer space approximately 100 µPa
Pressure on the Moon approximately 1 nPa
Interstellar space approximately 1 fPa

So, again, based off the asinine hypothesis that rockets require 'air' to work, then a bottle pressurized with air put in space would still move.
 
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travisty said:
And this is why you fail. An inability to critically think. Yes, even though the sound of this statement is right at your grade level, blowing air does work in a vacuum.

More in-depth to destroy your argument even more. Try the bottle experiment in the water-filled bathtub - pressurize the bottle with air, submerge it in the water and watch it move forward on its own. We now have proven that Newton's third law works in different pressures.

So even if your idiotic assumption that rockets require something 'equivalent to air' to move in was true (again it's not), space is not a perfect vacuum.

Near earth outer space approximately 100 µPa
Pressure on the Moon approximately 1 nPa
Interstellar space approximately 1 fPa

So, again, based off the asinine hypothesis that rockets require 'air' to work, then a bottle pressurized with air put in space would still move.
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yes, that's a lot of mumbojumbo, rockets thrust = push, nothing to push off of in a vacuum, the earth is flat, thanks
 
travisty said:
Well saying the earth is flat just means you're trolling.

No more feed for you
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Lol no doubt. I do not think a few people in here have seen micro thrusters at work, how else can they dock a rocket on ISS or how it was built part by part with docking space shuttles.... Surely it wasn't from a space shuttle shooting by and with magic a part lands where it needs to be.... hah
 
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Here's an honest question.... where are these people who think rockets don't work in space coming from? Who are they listening to and believing?

I mean it is basic physics why rockets do work in space and we've known that for nearly 300 years.
 
travisty said:
...
I mean it is basic physics why rockets do work in space and we've known that for nearly 300 years.
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yeah it is basic physics you just have to think a little, when you have nothing to push off of, you're not going anywhere
 
buhbuhfet said:
yeah it is basic physics you just have to think a little, when you have nothing to push off of, you're not going anywhere
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Durr what? At a child's level (yours) the particles being ejected are 'pushing' off the rocket's housing

Let's critically think about the case of myth busters as i'm sure you're saying that that experiment was flawed because there was glass to push against. How, in your crazy head would that work? Particles are ejected and bounce off the glass and hit the car making it go forward? Do the particles extend out like an invisible sudo-hand that's attached to the car and 'push' off the glass?

Or is this going to the God argument and trying to disprove sciense so that the mythical being you beleive in isn't shown not to be provable? (fyi, no divine being can be proven as real; thus such things are noit truth but instead are belief)
 
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