SpaceX to build heavy-lift, low-cost rocket

[bananas]

Source: Reuters

Space Exploration Technologies is building a rocket with twice the lift capacity of NASA's space shuttle that will also cut launch costs, the company's chief executive said on Tuesday.

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A test flight of Falcon Heavy is planned for 2013 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, Elon Musk told reporters in a news conference broadcast over the Internet.

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"I think we can realistically start to contemplate missions like a Mars sample return, which requires a tremendous amount of lift capability because you have to send a lander to Mars that still has enough propellant to return to Earth," Musk said. "If you try to do a mission like that with a smaller vehicle, you have to have several launches and either do orbital rendezvous or do some sort of much more complex mission."

Currently, it costs about $10,000 per pound to reach orbit. Falcon Heavy would cut that price to about $1,000 per pound, Musk said.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/05/us-space-business-rocket-idUSTRE73468B20110405

[phantom power]

1. I got to tour their factory once.

They build space ships!

PS, I love the name -- "Falcon Heavy"

[LongTomH]

2. Falcon Heavy launch vehicle

The Space-X website has more info on the Falcon Heavy launcher. I'm a fan of Space-X, like Bad Astronomer Phil Plait

Edited to add: There's also a really cool video of a Falcon Heavy Launch on the SpaceX website.

[sofa king]

3. It's our ticket to the Solar System.

Now that the International Space Station is functional, it's feasible to assemble exploration systems in low earth orbit from multiple Falcon launches, and even use another unladen (except for fuel) Falcon Heavy to tow those packages out to lunar orbit before final assembly, testing and launch.

That allows for such luxuries as safely sending protected components of a nuclear power plant to lunar orbit before final assembly and activation, and once there it can't come back down unless you want it to. It's even feasible to send the International Space Station itself out as a manned planetary exploration vehicle, with Falcons providing periodic supply rendezvous. That's the way humans should have been exploring space from the beginning.

Once you've reached lunar orbit, as Arthur C. Clarke pointed out half a century ago, you've already expended over 90% of the energy needed to reach Saturn from Earth, meaning that all of the solar system--all of it!--is open to exploration, cheaply, reliably, and with the critical input of actual humans. We could see it all coming together in less than twenty years.

[VWolf]

4. 20 years?

Would love to see it, but I doubt we'll get there in the next 100.

It's one thing to send a probe to Saturn, quite another to send humans. The technological challenges are staggering. We're going to need quadruple redundancy (or more) on just about everything to ensure the crew makes it back alive. If there is no provision for artificial gravity, this same crew will be permanently handicapped on return - so now we're talking about a really big spacecraft.

In college, I took a space systems class where we did a preliminary design of a mission to mars. It was a real eye-opener for me.

Aside from the technical issues, there remains the issue of financing the project. I can't see anyone or any government stepping up to the plate on this.