
SpaceX BFR [video] - mulcahey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqE-ultsWt0
======
codeulike
_Cost per seat should be about the same as full fare economy in an aircraft.
Forgot to mention that._ \- Elon
[https://www.instagram.com/p/BZnVfWxgdLe/](https://www.instagram.com/p/BZnVfWxgdLe/)

Looks like fun. I'd love to see the in-flight safety video!

"Make sure there's nothing in your pockets because we'll be hitting 3 Gees. If
anything goes wrong, we're all probably toast."

I think this was just an interesting idea thrown out at the end of a talk that
had much more interesting stuff, such as redirecting all of SpaceX's resources
away from Falcon to build the BFR, and putting humans on Mars by a 2024
'aspirational goal'

~~~
cycrutchfield
Note that the Instagram post is a little misleading. “Full Fare economy” is
not as cheap as you think, it’s more like what you would pay for business
class. So, maybe $3k for a transatlantic flight.

~~~
thinkcontext
True but its for a vastly superior service.

~~~
axman6
Service doesn’t really matter if it’s less than an hour.

------
jokoon
Aren't supersonic jets more affordable? I mean I know SpaceX is about changing
the world, and I know SpaceX is about rockets, but in terms of market, I think
having a new Concorde would better fit the idea of earth to earth travel.

I like how SpaceX innovates, but I think this is a "too soon", bad product
idea because it will be too expensive at first, and supersonic jets would be a
better competitor.

Although I have to admit I really like the disruptive way of "showing the way
to the future" communication ad. But to be frank, I wonder if people at SpaceX
are not full of zeal sometimes. One bigger problem for SpaceX might be "how to
sell space to consumers, or make money with space?".

Maybe that is the reason NASA existed as a government agency, because there is
no real, direct ROE with space exploration. In the end SpaceX might make money
with wealthy people who can afford going to mars or the moon, but I doubt that
many people would be interested if there is no financial gain (or maybe for
the hell of it). Innovation from NASA research was shared or benefited the
military.

I want SpaceX to endure and succeed but I really wonder about the money/market
sides of it. It requires a lot of vision, which goes beyond the reality of
capitalism.

~~~
simonh
It’s a really good question. Supersonic jets were always heavily constrained
due to noise pollution issues with the sonic boom. They weren’t allowed to fly
over land at supersonic speeds, relegating them to trans-oceanic routes. Now
yes this system will have such problems on launch, but as they go pretty much
straight up out of the atmosphere compared to a jet, the vast majority of the
journey is in space where that’s not a problem. Also supersonic jets had range
restrictions preventing maximum use of their speed, while this thing can go
literally anywhere on Earth. Finally the big killers with Concorde was
recouping development costs and paying for ‘one-off’ spare parts, the costs
were crippling. The BFR will (hopefully) exist anyway, so that’s not a factor.

In principle yes a supersonic airliner could be cheaper, but the noise
pollution issue alone is one of those external factors that is a real killer.
Now it’s quite possible this use of the BFR might run into issues like that of
its own, but they’re likely to be different issues at least.

~~~
mstade
If people think supersonic jets are loud, they’re in for a treat with rockets.
Anyone who’s ever witnessed a launch at KSC (I have) will probably say two
things: it’s awesome, and it’s LOUD.

Not ear popping kind of loud, but VERY loud nonetheless, and you feel it too
if you’re close enough. (Really recommend a viewing at the LC39 observation
gantry, it’s awesome!) I was watching that video and kept thinking that
platform isn’t far enough from inhabited land that people won’t go apeshit
over how loud it is.

I want this future, and boy do I want to see a rocket launch again, but waking
up to that nice sound of rocket fuel burning at 6.30am? Yeah, maybe no. :o)

~~~
Retric
Airports are in cities. Even 10 miles out to the ocean would make a massive
difference without taking that long.

~~~
mstade
Airplanes are much, _much_ quieter than rockets though. If you haven't seen
(and heard!) a launch in person, I understand this might be difficult to
appreciate. Even 10 miles out isn't enough to be ignorable.

Also the light – a launch is very bright! During the daytime this wouldn't be
such a big deal I guess, but a dawn/dusk/night launch would be _very_
noticeable, even from 10 miles out.

------
drinchev
I think if we measure the travel time from door to door the benefits of the
fast rocket shrink in a relation to where is located.

With airplanes this is solved, by the big infrastructure ( cities sometimes
have even 2-3 airports ).

Where I live ( Berlin ) with a flight to NYC would look like :

    
    
        1. City center -> TXL  - 20m
        2. Check-in / security - 30m ( no joke, the airport is small )
        3. Flight              - 9h 15m
        4. Check-out / luggage - 50m 
        5. EWR -> City center  - 50m
        ------------- TOTAL ---- 11h 25m
    

This means that ( ignoring the BFR flight time, since it's just minutes ) the
time between you leave the city-center and entering the BFR should take less
than 5 hours ( for Berlin ), otherwise you will not arrive faster than a
plane.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
One thing you're missing:

For a very high profile requirement - say, some kind of huge emergency - you
could land the BFR _anywhere_ there's a solid surface the size of a soccer
field. Zero infrastructure required.

Getting it out of there again would be difficult, but you could have a team of
experts and a whole lot of material resources literally drop down from the sky
anywhere on Earth in a matter of hours. Most of that duration would be spent
loading the human and material cargo into the rocket.

We have no way of doing that currently.

P.S.: And if the emergency is big enough, you could drop the whole thing into
the ocean near the shore and just jettison the passengers and cargo shortly
before impact.

Rapid intervention anywhere on Earth. Literally.

~~~
lsaferite
Military invasion forces and quick reaction forces would be much easier to
insert with tech like that.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
I'm not sure about invasion. These things are pretty vulnerable on the
descending part of the trajectory.

------
ojosilva
I'm not sure here, but I think weather could play a major role in disrupting
launches, greater than with jet liners, right? And not just due to windy
conditions (which planes can better withstand up to a certain point), but also
rough waters.

Another issue is noise. I don't see rockets happening that close to shore in
large cities. A long pad-to-city commute, with ship trip included, would be
another inconvenience.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Maybe. Rockets can actually fly through a variety of rough weather conditions.
Indeed, they can even survive being struck by lightning (as Apollo 12 was).
However, they are not, as a rule, _designed_ to do so. And because they are
multi-million dollar equipment that are only used once before being discarded
it's easier to simply avoid launching in weather that might be too severe.

However, in practice a rocket could be designed to fly in much more severe
weather than is allowed for most launches today, it just takes designing it to
do so. Because of the huge cost of rockets today designing a rocket to fly
through adverse weather would add additional additional manufacturing cost
onto each launch, which is not a good tradeoff. But if you can ammortize that
over many flights, then it's not a big deal.

Think about ICBMs and SLBMs. Do you think there is someone sitting in a
Minuteman bunker looking at the weather, ready to tell the launch officers
just after they've turned their keys "sorry fellas, I've overriden your
orders, we can't launch today, the weather is too crummy, oh well, better wait
until tomorrow, if there is one"? No, missiles are designed to launch on a
moment's notice, and be capable of successfully hitting their targets even if
the local weather is terrible. Their designed to be able to launch through
thunderstorms and experience only a small percentage of losses in the most
unusual conditions. Similarly, any orbital rocket can be designed to be able
to launch through most typical severe weather events, with only a small
percentage of conditions (compared to today) requiring a scrub because it
would endanger mission success.

The degree to which SpaceX will do such a thing is unknown, but it's within
the realm of possibility.

Also, it should be noted that a major reason weather has a historical role in
disrupting launches is because one of the best locations for launches in the
US (Florida: Easterly coast, as close to the equator as possible) is also one
of the few places on Earth with the most thunderstorm activity (roughly one
out of five days in Florida has a thunderstorm). The vast majority of other
locations on Earth don't experience nearly the same level of launch-risk
inducing severe weather.

~~~
fludlight
ICBMs also typically launch from underground, which helps a bit with the noise
and maybe even the weather. Also, you'd have to dig a pretty wide hole to make
it land-able and reusable.

~~~
jimmcslim
Presumably several ICBMs are launched at a particular destination at the same
time; unlike a payload of paying passengers an ICBM's payload is somewhat
fungible so more risks can be taken.

------
DanielBMarkham
A few thoughts not covered yet.

First, instead of people, a great first market for this would be cargo. It
would enable same-day delivery of goods anywhere in the world. Surely there's
a market for that. I know for a lot of tech gear, when you need it, you need
it _right now_. Factoring in the cost of a business-class ticket (per kilo),
isn't anywhere near being a show-stopper.

Second, time-to-load could be a real factor, especially if you have to reach
city center, then load into a boat, then go to the pad, then load in the
rocket, then wait for fuel loading, etc. A better way to do this would be to
use hyperloops in a spider fashion from the launch pad out to several of the
burbs around the city. I could see the hyperloops ending underwater near the
pad, with a nice mall and places for people to wait until their rocket was in
position for flight. God help us, you'd still have the TSA nonsense.

Third, it just shows a barge, but this would be an entire "thing" \--
launchers, rockets, fueling stations, malls, security, and so forth. Maybe
cargo is a pretty good way to get started. Adding people just makes the
complexity worse.

Fourth, before you do cargo, you could do a few high-profile people shots
every month, for folks with lots of money who want to be remembered as some of
the first folks to ever travel sub-orbitally. Hell if you'd want an accident
in those days, though. Public relations will be a bear. It reminds me of the
early days of flight, when most folks had a deep and profound fear of the
machine. Do you want to get on to the top of a huge stick of dynamite? I do,
and most HN'ers might, but a few YouTube explosions that kill people could
shut the entire thing down (or worse, delay it for decades)

------
thesash
There are three things that would factor into my decision about whether to
strap myself to a rocket rather than fly in a plane: time, cost, and safety.

Musk & SpaceX are talking a lot about time and cost, but safety is obviously a
lot more important. Based on data I found on the internet (so it must be
true!) the loss rate for rockets is 20k - 165k higher than the fatal crash
rate for airplanes over the past 20 years.

Loss rate for manned rocket launches [1]: 0.79%

Loss rate for unmanned rocket launches [1]: 6.68%

Rate of airplane crashes with at least one fatality [2]: < 0.00004%

Even if SpaceX is able to make manned space flight 10x safer, I'm not sure I'd
trade 19 of the 20 hours I spent traveling from LA to South Africa this summer
for a 1/1,300 chance of blowing up during launch.

[1]
[https://space.stackexchange.com/a/12229](https://space.stackexchange.com/a/12229)

[2]
[http://www.planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm](http://www.planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm)

~~~
Robotbeat
Loss rate for space launches is largely due to the fact that the systems are
essentially munitions (i.e. expendable, single-use) and flight rates are very
low.

Rocket failures for crewed rocket launches are extremely rare, occurring once
every couple decades. It's hard to improve on that because low flight rates
make data very hard to come by. Airplanes fail much more often in absolute
terms, giving you a lot more data to work with (especially when combined with
near-misses) allowing you bring the _relative_ failure rate very low.

Increase flight rates by 5 orders of magnitude, and you may be able to
increase reliability by, say, 4 orders of magnitude.

~~~
simplicio
The problem is that to increase flight rates by 5 orders of magnitude, you
need demand to increase by that much. And people are unlikely to demand rocket
flights until _after_ they're as safe as plane flights.

Early passenger planes were pretty dangerous to, but they got around the above
problem by a) being much faster than trains, making the risk worth it, b)
having clear military applications, the military being less worried about
losing the occasional aircrew.

I don't really see how SpaceX gets around that chicken and egg problem.

~~~
1053r
You answered your own question: military applications.

The US Armed Forces would pay a LOT of money to move 100+ tons of personnel
and materiel anywhere on earth with a flat landing spot in under 60 minutes.

You could have tanks on the ground that were fully operational in under 3
hours (probably half that if they left the BFR packed and fueled for takeoff
at all times), or a disaster recovery base set up within 24 hours of the winds
dying down (to pick a more topical example.)

~~~
simplicio
Maybe, though the military has studied similar ideas before and nothing has
ever come from it, so I'm sceptical they're going to throw the kind of funding
at it that would be required here. As a general concern, actual travel time
doesn't usually seem to be the main determinant of how fast military forces
can be deployed.

But who knows. The idea of a big capsule coming down in a war zone and a bunch
of tanks and marines rolling out certainly seems pretty cool, and I'm sure
Musk and his lobbyists will at least try and convince the DoD that its
something worth throwing a lot of $$ at.

------
jlebrech
I thought the ship was going to take off

~~~
someperson
Not too get too off-topic with HN's strict rules, but here's an anime
depiction of what I believe you to have been imagining:
[https://gfycat.com/gifs/detail/ActualFeistyBettong](https://gfycat.com/gifs/detail/ActualFeistyBettong)
(sorry for the image macro, I couldn't find a HTML5 embed without it)

~~~
jlebrech
I was thinking of it taking off more diagonally, but yes quite close.

------
diegoperini
How many hours early should we arrive to the launch pad? Are laptops allowed?

~~~
suprfnk
> Are laptops allowed?

No idea. But the fastest flight (non stop) from NYC to Shanghai right now is
almost 15 hours. This promises 39 minutes.

Would you rather fly 15 hours with a laptop than 39 minutes without?

~~~
mtgx
I think that depends on whether or not the ticket is something like 50x more
expensive.

If Musk is proposing this idea then I assume it won't be too expensive, even
for rich people. So it should cost _significantly less_ than what private jet
trip costs them (because the BFR is not so private after all).

Of course, the faster time to destination should also balance things out, but
I have a feeling a trip would be more like 2h with the boat trips and waiting
time included, because as others have said, I doubt the launchpad will be that
close to shore.

~~~
planteen
Latest claim: "elonmusk Fly to most places on Earth in under 30 mins and
anywhere in under 60. Cost per seat should be about the same as full fare
economy in an aircraft. Forgot to mention that."

[https://www.instagram.com/p/BZnVfWxgdLe/](https://www.instagram.com/p/BZnVfWxgdLe/)

What's a NYC to SHA full fare one way, about $800? I wonder if he is also
getting into the fuel business? So if this rocket holds 200 people, that only
gives him $160k in revenue. Fuel for the smaller Falcon is more than that per
launch. Or is this baseless hype?

~~~
mjamesaustin
In the presentation he mentions that the payload volume is larger than an
A380, which seats 525 passengers in a standard configuration or over 800
passengers in an all-economy configuration.

So we're looking at more like $400-$600k revenue per launch. And honestly, if
prices came in at 50% more than traditional airlines, you're looking at a hell
of a great deal to cut your travel time dramatically.

~~~
planteen
So say we boost things to 1,000 passengers, cost of full fare is $5000 so
people are willing to pay $10,000. Assume passengers and luggage average out
to 200 lbs/passenger. You are looking at a revenue per launch of $50/lb. Sure,
this is suborbital, but that is nearly 50x cheaper than what it costs to get
to LEO using SpaceX right now.

------
ryandrake
Why not instead work on ways to reduce the need to move people from one place
on Earth to another, thereby eliminating the cost, hassle and pollution of air
travel and hypothetical rocket travel? There's a huge amount of progress that
can be made in telepresence technology--it seems silly to get hung up on the
assumption that in order to do something or experience something somewhere you
need your bag of water and meat to physically be there. We're very close to
mass adopting remote employment--to the point where the barriers are no longer
technical but cultural. Why not work on the same for other areas of business
and for personal vacations? Physical travel should seem like a silly
inefficiency!

We should focus on making the Holodeck, not rockets.

~~~
njarboe
Why don't you start working on Holodecks. Musk wants to get humanity off this
rock. Funding the building of a ship designed to land anywhere in the solar
system, including Earth, by using it for Earth transport is brilliant. If one
can make the trip from New York to Shanghai in 40 minutes, for the same fuel
per person and ticket price as an airplane, why not. Having a fully reusable
rocket will be amazing.

Once reliability is proven one could even start thinking about nuclear powered
rockets and get those CO2 emissions to zero. I'm sure it is on Elon Musk's
mind and Mueller has even mentioned looking into nuclear rockets. Solar system
travel could really use nuclear rockets to get reasonable travel travel times.

~~~
ryandrake
I fully applaud efforts to "get humanity off the rock". To the extent that
building a rocket airline helps move humanity toward this goal, great! But,
other than as a stepping stone to something bigger, this just seems like a
silly distraction.

As for the very HN-ish "why don't you just go make XYZ?" retort, obviously
it's because, like most of us (and unlike Elon Musk), I don't have the
necessary truckloads of $100 bills necessary to make that happen. I'll get
back to you after my windfall from selling PayPal...

~~~
njarboe
I think the retort is coming from the fact that to do something amazing like
building a reusable rocket (or other great, but easier projects) takes much
more than money in the bank. It takes a whole lot of talented people working
very hard for a long time. The leader of such people will need an amazing
amount of dedication, work, skill, time, luck, drive, smarts, charisma,
sacrifice, friends, money, charm etc. to pull it off. If the leader does not
have a burning passion for the goal, giving up is the likely outcome with all
the problems along the way. So when someone says that this person should be
dedicated to some other goal, even though the one they are doing is great,
that does not make any sense. The leader and the people working with him have
a passion for a certain idea and the skills to work on towards that project.
Those are not fungible to another project. Move Musk and all the people
working at SpaceX to working on the Holodeck would just be useless and a
waste.

Technology does not just progress by magic or money. People must do the hard
work. The world is awash in capital at this moment with negative interest
rates in some places. Physical resources (or money) is not the limitation for
getting most new things done in the world at the moment. It is the complicated
process of getting people working together, taking a million false steps, and
not giving up before finally figuring out how to reach a goal.

~~~
ryandrake
I think we agree on one point: To do great things, access to capital is
necessary but not sufficient. If all it took was hard work, I'm sure lots of
us would quit our jobs today and get started!

~~~
njarboe
True. Some start early. Elon Musk sold a video game he wrote called Blaster to
a magazine when he was 12 years old for $500. Then he used that money to try
to open a video arcade with his brother. He and his brother did get $28,000 to
start Zip2 from his father, but that is not a huge sum. The cost of half a
year of college. I would say, if you live in the US, access to capital is far
down the list on what blocks people over the long haul.

~~~
ike_yeah
I'd say 28K is a lot when it comes to a venture that may not pay off. I hear
Elon's father was not particularly poor, so there is some leverage in that.
Who knows if Elon could have made it otherwise without the capital. Makes me
question if we all need some money to make money.

Curiously, what was the 28K spent on? Maybe 12K for rent, tops for 1995. He
even lived in the office. Someone chime in?

------
corradio
wait and what's the energy usage of that thing? Carbon footprint?

~~~
Shivetya
sadly this is all I started thinking, but only because of how much he pushes
EVs and Solar. It seems like a complete opposite move but given current
technology there isn't a clean method to do what he wants.

I would be really curious how much works has gone into neutral fuels. pretty
sure lox and such can be made neutrally with solar powered chillers but what
is his other fuel? a hydrogen type would be similar would it not?

~~~
eightysixfour
Methane + oxygen (methalox).

~~~
triplesec
That produces C02, and given the energies required, would produce a lot. A
retrograde step.

------
jacquesm
Interesting. Two little issues: safety and ticket costs. Also, your average
overweight tourist isn't going to be very happy at several G's.

~~~
FatalLogic
Extrapolating very naively from SpaceX prices[1] for Falcon Heavy to low earth
orbit suggests a ticket price of about $150,000, at $1500 per kg

That is ignoring safety, and other pros and cons such as Falcon Heavy didn't
fly yet, Space-X doesn't have a passenger module, frequency and economic scale
of passenger operation, different flight profile from LEO, lack of regulatory
framework, and so on

[1][http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities](http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities)

~~~
ascorbic
"About the same as full fare economy" So in the low thousands. Incredible if
true.

[https://www.instagram.com/p/BZnVfWxgdLe/](https://www.instagram.com/p/BZnVfWxgdLe/)

~~~
rkangel
Impressive if they achieve that. The price point they need to reach though for
this to be feasible is business class. As suggested by the NY<->Shanghai route
in the video, the major use for this would be distant business meetings that
either have to be week long trips or video conferences. Instead they could be
overnight or even day trips. Businesses have more buying power as well
compared to consumers.

~~~
mtgx
If they can maintain all ticket prices below $10,000 that would probably work.
It would still be 2-3x what businesses normally pay, but they would arrive 10x
faster, so it may be worth it at least for some. Musk just needs enough
customers to make the business sustainable and so he can afford to build more
such rockets and then keep dropping the price.

------
tbabb
Musk says the ticket price would equal an economy international plane ticket.

Back of the envelope calculation more or less confirming that here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15362976](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15362976)

~~~
jlebrech
even if it cost multiples the cost of a concorde ticket, i'm sure some would
want to fly from sydney to new york in one hour.

------
TeMPOraL
So that's basically the first privately-owned ICBM?

~~~
unsigner
No, the current SpaceX rockets are ICBM enough. This is much harder - ICBM's
don't need to land at ~0 m/s vertical speed, and if they carry nuclear
warheads (are there conventional ICBMs at all?) they don't need ~1 m landing
precision.

~~~
jlebrech
you could land a big freaking robot in pieces, or land a bunch of killer
drones in enemy territory

~~~
synthmeat
Commandoes to carry out raids. Dirty bombs with big drills to pollute water
supply to a region. So much fun it's sad.

------
teekert
BFR, Big Freaking Rocket?

~~~
neverminder
Big Fucking Rocket, actually.

~~~
monk_e_boy
Yep, they just talked about it on Radio 4. The comment was "So he's really
called it that?" Then a sigh. Haha. Love it :)

~~~
Boothroid
Beautiful. A middle finger to the usual bland corporate pomposity!

------
pvsukale1
I know people have valid reasons to be skeptical about such projects. But
maybe after 50 years or so when this kind of transport will be very common we
will remember this day as one of the most historic events in the course of
humanity.

~~~
willyt
And if it becomes that common, in 150 years time, New York will be under
water. I remember reading that the instantaneous power output of one Apollo
rocket taking off is roughly the equivalent of the entire average electricity
load of the UK. Surely burning a country's worth of rocket fuel every time you
want to travel long distance is not sustainable?

~~~
mtgx
Fusion power can't come soon enough. Maybe it's time for Musk to start working
on that. He actually said in an older interview that he would like to tackle
it eventually.

~~~
leonroy
He recently said (paraphrasing) that it wasn’t particularly productive
investing in Fusion when there’s a giant, very efficient fusion reactor in the
sky. We’d be better off improving solar panel efficiency and energy storage
solutions.

~~~
hossbeast
He's also said rockets are the only transportation where electric wont work.

------
SurrealSoul
Do we get to wear the super cool spacesuits?

~~~
stcredzero
They should charge extra for Daft Punk cosplay.

------
idibidiart
Wouldn't that mess with our nuclear early warning system? How can you tell if
it's an ICBM nuke or a passenger rocket?

------
grondilu
They should really _not_ put windows on this. At least not in the first
models. Sure, passengers would love to see outside, but really it makes the
design much more complicated for little benefit.

It can be stressful not to have any idea of what is happening outside, but you
can simply alleviate that with external cameras and screens on board.

------
marbu
If this acctually happens, it would be interesting to see how the
international law, ai<del><del>space trafic control and military missle
defence systems develops, so that SpaceX can land one of these in Shangai
without having to worry about accidentaly starting a thermonuclear war.

------
fahd777
Interesting article about it:
[https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/29/16385026/elon-musk-
spacex...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/29/16385026/elon-musk-spacex-
rocket-transportation-point-to-point)

------
idlewords
Musk seems to enjoy making promises about all kinds of fantasy transport,
promising orders of magnitude cost reduction from already mature technologies
like tunneling, rocketry, or high-speed rail. These promises meet with very
little skepticism here.

Pan Am once offered tickets to the Moon.

~~~
drcross
It would be different if this was coming from the mouth of the Comcast CEO but
it's coming from Musk who has a series of successful achievements of his own,
a profitable space company with the worlds first re-usable rockets, the first
company to successfuly market an electric car, fastest growing battery storage
solution on the market. These things matter.

~~~
idlewords
They do, but the crux of every Musk fantasy is a radical drop in the cost of
these things, a promise he has never delivered on.

~~~
OrwellianChild
Tesla Roof is cheaper than many traditional roofing materials _and_ provides
solar. See the chart here. [1]

Air Force launches with SpaceX are less than half the price of ULA launches.
[2]

Can you clarify how you believe Musk's companies haven't delivered?

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-10/tesla-
s-s...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-10/tesla-s-solar-roof-
is-finally-ready-for-you-to-buy)

[2] [https://www.engadget.com/2017/06/16/us-air-force-spacex-
ula-...](https://www.engadget.com/2017/06/16/us-air-force-spacex-ula-launch-
costs/)

~~~
idlewords
They have not delivered "orders of magnitude cost reduction from already
mature technologies", which is what I said in my parent comment. They've
instead made (valuable!) incremental advances, usually by relying on immense
government subsidies.

~~~
wolf550e
What immense government subsidies did Tesla and SpaceX rely on? Tesla got a
loan it paid back early and a $7k tax rebate per car for the first 200k cars
which other car companies also got. SpaceX got a contract to build a rocket
and capsule NASA wants to use, for a fraction of the price Boeing and Lockheed
charge for same job.

~~~
idlewords
"A $7k tax rebate per car for the first 200k cars" is a $1.4B government
subsidy.

~~~
wolf550e
"usually by relying on immense government subsidies" makes one think that
Boeing and GM failed to do the engineering work that SpaceX and Tesla had done
because they were somehow barred from some kind of government subsidy.

But of course, the opposite is true: Being, Lockheed, GM, Ford, etc. enjoy a
lot of help from the government (money and regulation) and use a bunch of
dirty tactics against Musk's companies. And despite this, SpaceX and Tesla did
things the incumbents were incapable of doing. In some cases things that were
said to be impossible rather than just uneconomical.

I think at least the "usually" in your post is unwarranted.

------
maytc
How big are the sonic booms gonna be?

~~~
ascorbic
They're launching out to sea. Once they're over land, they'll be out of the
atmosphere. In space no one can hear you boom.

------
cjsuk
Genuinely don't care if this is a stupid idea or if it works or not but I'd
ride it :)

------
wiredfool
This looks like a large volume version of the cars in Too Like the Lightning
-[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_Like_the_Lightning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_Like_the_Lightning)

------
alexnewman
I am sure mil would love this tech

~~~
perilunar
Absolutely. 200+ paratroopers, anywhere in the world in under an hour?

Land anywhere flat after the troops have jumped, refuel and recover later.

~~~
stcredzero
_Land anywhere flat_

Like the deck of an aircraft carrier? A specialized glider-reentry vehicle
would allow the delivery of armored vehicles. It would also allow safer
deployment of the rocket.

------
kensai
I wonder if they can compete with Boom Supersonic
[[https://boomsupersonic.com/](https://boomsupersonic.com/)] at the fuel cost.
One reason Concorde failed was NOISE and FUEL COSTS.

~~~
LeonM
If I have to believe Elon, the fuel for the BFR is 'incredibly cheap' to
produce. And the concorde flew over land and cities, a rocket goes straight up
(for the first part) so noise problems should be acceptable.

------
pjungwir
In startups you often have tech that is more general than it needs to be, and
you start thinking about all the opportunities, but it can be a mistake. In
your go-to-market strategy, you need focus. If you say, "We have 3 business
models", it means you don't yet have a business model.

I hope Elon the best, but I wonder if that is happening here. SpaceX is going
to sell Internet, do fast air travel, do space tourism, . . . . Same with
Tesla: we aren't just a car company, we're a battery company! There is a
hyperloop and a digging company and solar rooftops. I think it's true there
are many opportunities, and history has had its conglomerates like GE, but
there is risk in losing your focus.

Still, I'm thrilled he is pushing us forward!

~~~
stcredzero
_In your go-to-market strategy, you need focus. If you say, "We have 3
business models", it means you don't yet have a business model._

It's pretty clear that SpaceX is in the reusable rocket business. By your
logic, Boeing didn't have focus, because they built seaplanes, flying boats,
fighters, cargo planes, and passenger planes. (This is what they did, in the
order that they did it.) They apparently had at least 5 business models.
Whoops. I guess they didn't have a business model!

------
miguelrochefort
It's not like people will be able to reach their destination within an hour of
booking their ticket. These flights will probably occur once or twice a day,
which kind of defeats the purpose?

~~~
bergie
Regular intercontinental flights have the same problem. With transport this
fast, you could theoretically fly in the morning, have a full day of meetings,
and be home by the evening. With regular flights you'd spend a full day
traveling both ways

~~~
miguelrochefort
Fair enough. In the meantime, I'll stick to Skype.

------
jbkkd
What about pollution? Rockets seem to waste much more fuel compared to a plan
on an equivalent distance, though I might be wrong and the main burn would
consume less overall.

------
mmjaa
I think this is amazing - but what are the military implications? I mean, the
military-industrial complex is not likely to stand by and watch this
capability become so commonplace that it invalidates the purpose of having
fast-attack forces at the readiness.

I mean, I guess the answer is pretty clear: the US Military will be the first
customer for the BFR, before any transportation companies get it .. they
already hold technology in reserve for their war-fighting abilities, so .. its
going to be interesting to see what the MIC version of this is going to be ..
assuming they don't already have it. (Some people think they do ..)

------
baybal2
I will call this "Intercontinental Ballistic Taxi"

------
fuzzythinker
Start:
[https://youtu.be/S5V7R_se1Xc?t=26m12s](https://youtu.be/S5V7R_se1Xc?t=26m12s)

------
sschueller
Virgin galactic seems to be a more reasonable solution which could probably
use existing airport with slight modification.

~~~
mikeash
SpaceShipTwo is a very much suborbital craft that would only have a range of a
few hundred (maybe a thousand?) miles if used for travel. You'd have to build
something much bigger to do antipodal travel like this.

The capability you need to go suborbital from one side of the Earth to the
other is essentially the same as what's needed to go into orbit. (Thus all the
ICBMs that got repurposed as orbital launchers.) Any vehicle that can't reach
orbit probably can't do what BFR could do.

------
davman
I'm guessing there would be some environmental impact? It can't exactly be
carbon neutral burning all that fuel?

~~~
dfcowell
It can be if the fuel is synthesized from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
with solar as a power source.

------
wayanon
The security protections on the launch pads alone would have to be incredibly
high. Looks vulnerable at sea like that.

~~~
jacquesm
Like the security precautions at airports? Any airport that I'm familiar with
has access roads and roads around it that are accessible to the public from
where any idiot with an RPG or possibly even a rifle could attempt to bring
down a passenger jet. And yet it does not happen.

~~~
ben_w
I wonder _why_ it does not happen, given that terrorist attacks in general do
occur. Great policing, or do the bad guys just lack imagination?

Hoping for the former, but if I were a civil servant I’d want to assume the
latter and plan for surprise imagination.

~~~
Boothroid
There are tools available to help reduce the threat, e.g.
[http://www.cunningrunning.co.uk/sam-
pras](http://www.cunningrunning.co.uk/sam-pras)

'SAM-PRAS is a unique market-leading solution used by counter-terrorism
agencies to identify potential MANPADS launch points within range of flight
paths.'

I don't work for or have any association with this company BTW, just aware of
their software.

------
bxu
The jet lag must be pretty significant then :)

~~~
madisfun
Nah, in half an hour you can always come back to sleep at home.

~~~
Boothroid
How long until we have transcontinental commuting?!

------
jlebrech
can anyone think of scenarios where somebody has to be somewhere in an hour?

what about making one of those the new airforce one?

~~~
gravypod
Industrial (Oil/Gas/Materials) repairmen. You're talking a few 100,000 for
every hour they're not pushing product. These places are located at the
resource, not where employees are so you're likely going to need to fly
someone super specialized in the maintenance of this one item half way across
the globe.

~~~
jlebrech
like sending specialists to a nuclear power plant after a disaster?

------
martin1b
Do we get an in-flight snack?

------
jeandejean
Marketing of that product is awesome. But does it scale? Very unlikely! That's
great to have impossible goals to make people dream, but stop bullshitting
people saying it will replace commercial airplanes and everybody will be an
astronaut for the same price.

Why is the Concorde not in service anymore? Simple: it was a very little
market, over-polluting for over-privileged and we do not need that to enhance
traveling, we already tried! How would this BFR be different?

~~~
nickik
The Concorde was one airplane. Its not like we have tried every possible way
of increasing travel speed.

They will build this rocket anyway, the will have to make it reusable anyway.
All they did is consider using it as a transporter for people on earth.

Its just one way the can potentially make money with this technology. Does not
hurt to try. No reason to shit on the idea and claim its some absurd fantasy.

~~~
jeandejean
Well my bad, all I did was clicking on the link, I made a lot of assumptions
on what they intended to do with that.

Indeed it doesn't hurt to try!

